News

December, 2004

• 20 December

  Popularity of Gift Cards May Cause a Problem for Online Merchants

  The expected surge in gift cards received this holiday season may cause a problem for online merchants that try to match billing addresses given by consumers at checkout with those on file with issuers before authorizing transactions, says ClearCommerce Corp. Online retailers will usually set their address-verification systems (AVS) to …
• 16 December

  Viewpointe’s Image on Demand System Goes Live with First Bank Duo

  Viewpointe Archive Services LLC became the latest image-exchange venture to go live today when First Horizon and SunTrust Banks became the first banks to clear checks through the service. Earlier this fall, the Small Value Payments Co., New York, began moving check images for client banks, and Endpoint Exchange Inc., …
• 15 December

  Return Rates on ARC Dropping Even As Volume Soars, NACHA Says

  Return rates on accounts receivable check conversions are dropping despite the rapid clip at which the volume of these electronic payments is climbing, new data from the National Automated Clearing House indicate. The ARC category of ACH debit, created in March 2002, has gone from 5.3 million transactions in the …
• 15 December

  CVS Will Roll Out AmEx’s ExpressPay, But AmEx Loses Walgreen’s

  It has been an eventful week for American Express Co. Today the company announced that Woonsocket, R.I.-based drugstore chain CVS Corp. has agreed to serve as the first national merchant to accept ExpressPay, an AmEx system that relies on radio waves rather than card swipes to authorize transactions. This news …
• 14 December

  AmEx-Citi Is Great PR for AmEx, But How Profitable Will It Really Be?

  Citigroup Inc.'s decision to issue American Express cards may turn out to be a more symbolic than substantive victory in the credit card wars for AmEx, according to some observers. “It's clearly a victory, but more a marketing victory,” says Gwenn Bezard, a payments-industry analyst at New York-based research firm …
• 13 December

  Visa Logs Busiest Weekend Yet for This Year’s Holiday Season

  Visa U.S.A. says spending on its cards over the past weekend was the strongest yet seen this holiday shopping season, exceeding spending during the so-called Black Friday weekend after Thanksgiving by 15%. Indeed, Black Friday itself now ranks third in Visa spending, behind the volume reached this past Friday and …
• 10 December

  BitPass Rolls out a Hosted Service for Small Sellers of Digital Content

  Bitpass Inc., a 2-year-old processor of micropayments on the Internet, has rolled out a new service allowing individuals and small businesses to sell music, photos, or other digital content without creating an e-commerce site. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Bitpass says it will host the content for sellers and handle payments, “from …
• 10 December

  CyberSource Sees Online Holiday Traffic Peaking Next Tuesday

  CyberSource Corp. predicts that the increase in holiday spending online will be about equal with the rise in volume seen during the same time in 2003, disputing the estimates of some observers that e-commerce traffic growth will be lower this year. Growth last year in the fourth quarter was 25% …
• 10 December

  Apple’s iTunes Begins Accepting PayPal for Song Downloads

  Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store has announced it is accepting PayPal in the U.S. for payment of song downloads, audiobooks, and gift certificates, effective today. The development represents a major breakthrough for the San Jose, Calif.-based payments unit of eBay Inc. and comes a year after the company slashed …
• 9 December

  Two Canadian Companies Begin a U.S. Expansion for Online Debit

  Two rival online payment companies in Canada are making moves to expand the market for Web-based debit payments to the U.S. Toronto-based UseMyBank Services Inc. has linked with processors in both Europe and the U.S., while Othentik Technologies Inc., Montreal, has signed a deal to license its software to US …