News

May, 2004

• 10 May

  A Pulse Survey Shows Fees, Restrictions Risk Debit Users’ Ire

  A new national survey of debit card holders indicates a significant portion of consumers would be inclined to punish retailers and banks if they imposed fees or tried to restrict the range of accepted payment products. When asked how they would react if a merchant no longer accepted their debit …
• 6 May

  Metavante Buys AFS And Becomes a Player in Image Exchange

  Metavante Corp. announced today it has agreed to buy Advanced Financial Solutions Inc., an Oklahama City-based company specializing in check-processing technology and owner of the Endpoint Exchange, a network that routes electronic check images among processors and financial institutions. No price was announced, though Metavante officials said this acquisition, in …
• 6 May

  Gartner: Phishing Is Getting Worse, Hitting Hard at E-Commerce

  More evidence of the possible damage being done by phishing to e-commerce emerged in survey results released today by technology research firm Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn. The survey, which was completed last month and canvassed 5,000 adult Web users, indicates that 30 million users think they have definitely been a …
• 5 May

  Deal-Maker iPayment Reports Strong First-Quarter Results

  Nashville-based card payments processor iPayment Inc. reported financial results today that included a more than doubling in charge volume processed as well as hefty increases in revenue and net income. The company, which closed at the end of 2003 on a $55 million cash acquisition from First Data Corp. that …
• 4 May

  Endpoint Exchange, SVPCo. Add Heft to Image Network Efforts

  CheckClear LLC, which owns and operates what is so far the only national image-exchange network in operation for check processing, announced today it is planning to connect to an image exchange being built by the Federal Reserve. It also said it has made an agreement to connect to imaging equipment …
• 4 May

  A Survey Shows How Phishing Has Spooked Online Customers

  A survey conducted last month shows the extent to which e-mail fraud schemes, also known as phishing scams, are affecting consumers and their willingness to do business online, just as financial institutions and retailers are pushing to move more transactions into the online channel. Fully 75% of bank accountholders are …
• 3 May

  How Debitman Plans to Boost Its Card Base 300-Fold by Year’s End

  Debitman Card Inc., a retailer-sponsored debit card network based in Chico, Calif., is moving aggressively on a new card-issuance plan that calls for increasing the base of Debitman-branded cards to just over 900,000 cards issued by 1,000 merchant outlets by the end of the year. The card base currently stands …

April, 2004

• 30 April

  Peppercoin Readies ‘Version 2.0’ to Target a Huge Market

  Peppercoin Inc., a micropayments processor in Waltham, Mass., sees a potential market for transactions of small and very small values reaching into the trillions of dollars, embracing both the online and point-of-sale markets. To tap that potential, the new company is moving toward a rollout, planned for mid-summer, of a …
• 28 April

  A U.K. Banker’s Warning for His U.S. Brethren: Get with the Chip

  Bankers in the U.S. who bemoan the absence of a business case for smart cards may soon find one now that a massive rollout of chip-based credit and debit cards secured with personal identification numbers is well under way in the U.K., a British banker warned today. That's because fraudsters …
• 28 April

  AmEx Will Expand ExpressPay And Promote a New Incentive

  American Express Co. this Friday will begin adding more merchants in lower Manhattan in its test of radio-wave technology for payment transactions. Over the next several weeks, three quick-service restaurants near the card company's headquarters will begin accepting the card company's experimental ExpressPay RIFD keyfobs, which communicate with conventional card …