News

July, 2004

• 29 July

  Visa Sees First Fruits of a New Sales Push for Verified by Visa

  Visa U.S.A.'s consumer authentication system for Internet transactions, Verified by Visa, will see its merchant base expand by 50% in the next few days as online-shopping aggregator 2checkout.com switches on 10,000 Web retailers for the service. It's a significant lift for VbyV, and represents the first fruits of a new …
• 28 July

  MobileLime Eyes a National Market for M-Commerce

  A Boston-based mobile-transaction processor that has signed up a local taxicab company and a number of other merchants is hoping this week's Democratic National Convention will help propel the fledgling service into national prominence. Vayusa Inc., which offers the cell-phone-based service under the name MobileLime, has recruited 50 merchant locations …
• 27 July

  AmEx: Higher Merchant Revenue, Lower Discount Fee

  Worldwide discount-fee income jumped 18% for American Express Co. on sharply higher cardholder spending in the second quarter, though the card network's average discount rate drifted slightly downward. The company's U.S. card billings hit $75.7 billion in the quarter, a 17% increase over the year-ago period. Even faster card spending …
• 26 July

  ‘Bullish’ on RFID, Arthur Blank Projects 1 Million Cards in a Year

  Arthur Blank & Co. Inc., a Boston-based maker of plastic payment and loyalty cards, is getting into the market for cards equipped with radio-frequency-identification technology, with ambitions particularly for cards supporting loyalty programs and payments in the quick-service retail market. “We as a company are very bullish [on RFID],” says …
• 22 July

  Piggly Wiggly Switches on First Stores for In-Lane Biometric Payments

  Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., a Charleston, S.C.-based supermarket chain, today switched on an in-lane biometric payment system in four stores on the way to a planned rollout of the fingerprint authentication system to all 116 stores in the chain. The system, from San Francisco-based Pay By Touch, allows customers to …
• 22 July

  PayPal Reports 45% Year-Over-Year Transaction Growth

  Transactions at PayPal Inc. totaled 77.7 million and added up to $4.35 billion in value in the second quarter, up 45% and 53% respectively over the year-ago period, according to a quarterly report released this week by Internet auctioneer eBay Inc., the online payment processor's parent company. PayPal's average ticket …
• 21 July

  Burger King Is Installing High-Speed Terminals for Card Acceptance

  Following its agreement earlier this year with Chase Merchant Services L.L.C. for transaction-processing services, Burger King Corp. announced today it is deploying high-speed-capable card terminals in its restaurants across the country. In the past four months, it has installed VeriFone Omni 3750 devices in some 2,000 of its restaurants in …
• 21 July

  Despite Strong Results, FDC Faces a Barrage of Questions

  While First Data Corp. reported strong financial results today for its second quarter, its chief executive fielded a barrage of questions on concerns that have emerged recently for the company, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s decision to switch its account processing from FDC to rival TSYS Inc., with the …
• 20 July

  CyberSource Announces Non-Card Credit with Fewer Merchant Hassles

  Mountain View Calif.-based CyberSource Corp., a transaction gateway for Internet merchants, announced today it is offering a credit-based, non-card payment alternative that can be implemented with a minimum of integration hassles. The company says an arrangement with merchant processor Paymentech L.P. will allow CyberSource merchant clients to install I4Commerce Inc.'s …
• 19 July

  J.P. Morgan Reaps a Windfall from Lockbox Check Conversion

  The recent surge in transactions in the category of electronic checks called accounts-receivable conversion (ARC) comes as no surprise to the banks that are playing a major role in moving utilities, insurers, retailers, credit card companies, and other major consumer billers from paper checks to electronic transactions on the automated …