Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Carl F. Pascarella's decision to retire in September 2005 as chief executive of Visa USA is being greeted in the payments industry with expressions of praise for his leadership in transforming the San Francisco-based bank card network from a one-dimensional credit card company into a force to be reckoned with …
July, 2004
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15 July
A Trade Forum Looks to Extend IFX Standard to POS Transactions
A trade group that is developing a new transaction-messaging standard based on extensible markup language (XML) for financial transactions says it is now turning its attention to point-of-sale payments. The Interactive Financial Exchange Forum, Falls Church, Va., released earlier this year a version of the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) standard …
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14 July
New Survey Shows a Rapid Rise in Micropayments Market
The number of people buying goods online at prices below $2 has grown to some 10 million, up from 4 million nine months ago, according to a survey on micropayments whose results were released today. In the same nine months, the proportion of online buyers who bought content from more …
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13 July
Pricing Pressure in Merchant Processing Brings BofA and NPC Together
Severe price compression in the merchant acquiring market drove together two major players and led to further consolidation in the merchant-processing business as Bank of America Corp. today announced it has acquired National Processing Inc.for $1.4 billion in cash. BofA says it will combine its Merchant Services unit with NPC …
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12 July
With Torrid Growth, ARC Becomes the Dominant E-Check Category
The conversion of paper checks into electronic transactions at lockboxes maintained by utilities, insurers, credit card companies and other major consumer billers is growing at a red-hot pace. The process, known as accounts-receivable conversion (ARC), ballooned almost 800% in the second quarter over the year-ago period and now accounts for …
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9 July
Internet Gateways Will Lag Overall E-Commerce Growth, Report Says
After emerging in the 1990s as specialists in the business of connecting Internet merchants to acquirers and merchant processors, gateway processors are now wrestling with aggressive competition that will retard their growth relative to other e-commerce players, predicts a recent research report on online commerce. Gateways like CyberSource Corp., Authorize.Net …
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8 July
Research Sounds a Contrarian Note on Micropayments
New processing technologies for so-called micropayments–transactions carrying a value under $5–have received a lot of attention in recent months as the number of sellers of online digital content expands and as the market for song downloads explodes, but some observers now question how far the market can grow. Startups like …
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7 July
Mobile POS Picks up Steam As Costs Fall and Capabilities Rise
Falling technology costs and the increasing availability of more sophisticated cellular networks are driving a growing trend toward wireless point-of-sale devices, according to research from TowerGroup, a consulting and research firm in Needham, Mass. The firm's research indicates that while mobile terminals are still a small fraction of the installed …
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7 July
The ATM Exchange Wins a Sweeping OK for its Security Product
A Cincinnati-based company that specializes in the repair and refurbishment of ATMs has won a comprehensive class of approval from Visa International for a device it invented to bring installed ATMs into compliance with new card-network security protocols. The approval from Visa means any older ATM incorporating the device will …
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6 July
Acies Combines with Atlantic Synergy, Maps Acquisition Strategy
Acies Inc., an independent sales organization based in New York, today announced it has entered into an agreement with Fort Pierce, Fla.-based Atlantic Synergy Inc., under which the ISO will become a subsidiary of Atlantic Synergy and hold a controlling interest in the company. As part the acquisition, Atlantic Synergy, …