News

August, 2006

• 18 August

  Applying Casino Lessons, Infonox Pushes Savvier ATMs for Banks

  Convinced that banks are ready to upgrade ATM capability to sell more products and services, San Jose, Calif.-based Infonox Inc. says it is piloting marketing-savvy machines with unnamed clients and plans to have at least one commercial deployment in progress within six months. “There's a dramatic shift in the banking …
• 17 August

  iPayment Logs Low Volume Growth, Though Gas Prices Help

  Newly private iPayment Inc. this week reported a 12% increase in operating profits despite single-digit growth in charge volume. Nonetheless, the big Nashville, Tenn.-based independent sales organization posted a net loss of $5.81 million on expenses related to its May 10 management-led buyout, compared with net income of $7.73 million …
• 17 August

  Barnes & Noble Signing Helps Drive PayPal’s Off-eBay Push

  Pursuing a 2-year-old push to sell acceptance to online merchants, PayPal Inc. reached a milestone in that effort with this week's high-profile signing of bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Web site. The nation's largest bookstore chain's e-commerce operation should help the San Jose, Calif.-based online transaction processor further reduce its …
• 16 August

  Eyeing Gift-Card Popularity, the OCC Issues Disclosure Rules

  Responding to the rapid build-up in popularity of gift cards, a federal banking regulator has issued guidelines telling banks what information they should disclose?and how they should disclose it?to both the buyers and ultimate users of the prepaid plastic. The new rules, which bear on matters such as expiration dates, …
• 16 August

  FFIEC Clarifies Authentication Guidance, Gets Tough on Deadline

  Seeking to address industry uncertainty about its guidelines on online-banking security, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council this week released a set of clarifications it says addresses “a representation” of questions it has received from banks, technology companies, and banking examiners. This latest document from the FFIEC, an agency that …
• 14 August

  Processors Begin to Respond to Real-Time Bill-Payment Trend

  More and more consumers now expect their last-minute bill payments to be credited to their accounts with near instantaneous effect. And, increasingly, billers and processors are meeting that expectation?or at least laying plans to. “The trend is toward real-time [bill payment],” says Dave Fortney, senior vice president for electronic presentment …
• 11 August

  Discover’s Embrace of ViVOtech Hints at Bigger Contactless Plans

  Discover Network's recent certification of ViVOtech card readers indicates Discover is moving ahead with a contactless card program, but the No. 4 general-purpose card network is staying mum about the details. Discover says it has certified several readers from Santa Clara, Calif.-based ViVOtech Inc., a specialist in contactless payment hardware, …
• 10 August

  Online Retailers Get More Precise IP Geolocation Service to Battle Fraud

  Against a backdrop of an increasing number of online transactions requiring manual checking by Internet merchants to control fraud, transaction-gateway provider CyberSource Corp. this week introduced a service that lets merchants pinpoint customers' locations and write business rules to control whether, in light of this information, orders should be fulfilled. …
• 9 August

  SVPCO Gains More Critical Mass As PNC Joins Image-Exchange System

  All-electronic check image exchange got a boost this week with the addition of another large regional bank-holding company, Pittsburgh-based The PNC Financial Services Group, to SVPCO-Electronic Clearing Services' image-exchange network. Meanwhile, SVPCO reported today that it processed 3 million average daily items in July, up 17% from June's average. The …
• 9 August

  MasterCard Launches Real-Time Substantiation for Health-Benefit Cards

  Looking to increase the number of debit cards tied to flexible-spending accounts and other tax-advantaged health-care plans, MasterCard Worldwide has introduced a system that the Purchase, N.Y.-based bank card network says collects item-level detail and provides real-time substantiation at the point of sale. Substantiation, required by Internal Revenue Service rules …