News

October, 2003

• 16 October

  TCF Re-Ups with Visa

  After an acrimonious summer in which TCF Financial Corp. first complained about the costly Visa/MasterCard settlement in the Wal-Mart case, and then complained even more bitterly when Visa threatened to levy a penalty on TCF if it switched debit brands, the Minneapolis-based bank has come to terms with Visa and …
• 16 October

  BofA Tops NACHA’s 50 Biggest Receivers

  Bank of America Corp. took in far and away more ACH payments last year than any other receiving institution, according to statistics released today by the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA). The association's first annual ranking of receiving institutions shows BofA, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., in first place for …
• 15 October

  Peppercoin Assaults the Micropayments Market

  A service that has been in alpha test for the past three months to allow consumers to make micropayments for entertainment services is expected to be rolled out in the next month. Early participants in the service offered by Waltham, Mass.-based Peppercoin Inc. include Music Rebellion, an online service that …
• 14 October

  Microsoft and Vodafone Work to Link PC-Wireless Transactions

  Microsoft Corp. and Vodafone Group PLC are working together on technology standards that would allow personal computers to exploit wireless networks for functions ranging from user authentication to payment to text messages. A company that sells online games, for instance, could use the new mobile Web specifications to accept micropayments …
• 14 October

  Rate of E-check Fraud by Phone Drops by 88%

  The rate of unauthorized e-check transactions by telephone is down 88% over the last four quarters, reports the National Automated Clearing House Association. NACHA credits its ability to trace unauthorized phone payments to their source for the plunge in fraudulent e-check payments by phone to 0.15% of all third-quarter telephone …
• 10 October

  Behind a Web-Based Network’s Explosive Growth

  A Web-based payments transaction processing program has been growing at about 400% annually since it branched out beyond the hospitality industry. When Las Vegas-based Shift4 Corp. developed its $$$ on the Net system for nearby resorts five years ago, the system was designed to allow the hotel, gift shops, casinos, …
• 8 October

  Worries Mount About Touch-Screen Voting

  Celebrated movie actor Arnold Schwarzeneggar may have won yesterday’s wild and woolly recall election in California, but a verdict is still pending on the security and reliability of the ATM-like touch-screen voting machines used in four California counties. Some computer scientists and other observers fear the machines are susceptible to …
• 8 October

  FSA-Linked Debit Cards Get a Pass on HIPAA

  Issuers of debit cards tied to flexible-spending accounts may be breathing a sigh of relief now that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) unit of the federal Department of Health & Human Services has sent a letter to a marketer of one such card exempting its product from …
• 6 October

  EBT in Iowa: Better Late Than Never

  The state of Iowa is in the final stages of its statewide rollout of debit cards to recipients in the state’s food-stamp program, a year later than an Oct. 1, 2002, deadline mandated for all states in federal legislation passed in 1996. Only California among the 50 states now remains …
• 6 October

  NetBank Will Acquire ATM Deployer FTI

  NetBank Inc., which bills itself as the nation’s first commercially successful Internet bank, has agreed to acquire privately held Financial Technologies Inc., for cash and $1 million in restricted stock. Tommy Glenn, Jr., founder and president of FTI, says in a statement released today that the combination with NetBank will …