News

August, 2017

• 22 August

  Despite Obstacles, U.S. Contactless Payments Will Reach 34% in Five Years, Forecaster Says

  

  It’s what some may consider a bold forecast for contactless payments in the United States, but Juniper Research is predicting that, by 2022, 34% of electronic payments will be contactless, up from less than 2% in 2017. United Kingdom-based Juniper released its forecast Monday in a report called “POS and …
• 22 August

  Payroc Launches Mobile POS Product and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  

  Steven A. Rathgaber, who has been chief executive of ATM-networking firm Cardtronics plc since 2010, will retire at the end of the year and will be succeeded by Edward H. West, currently chief financial officer and chief operations officer, the company announced. Rathgaber came to Cardtronics from the NYCE electronic funds transfer …
• 21 August

  RIP: The Obama Era’s Operation Choke Point

  

  The political coroner has made an official pronouncement: Operation Choke Point is dead. The controversial program begun in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Justice during the administration of President Barack Obama aimed to deny payment services to fraudulent telemarketers, payday lenders, and other suspect merchants. It generated massive controversy for …
• 21 August

  At 2 Million Downloads, Chicago’s Transit System Sees an Appetite for Mobile Payment

  

  A pioneering mobile-payment wallet for mass transit has reached a milestone. Chicago’s Ventra app has been downloaded more than 2 million times since it became available in November 2015, according to an announcement Monday from Cubic Transportation Systems, the San Diego-based company that developed the app. Commuters have bought almost …
• 21 August

  Spectrum Payments in Referral Deal and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  

  Financial-services processor Fiserv Inc. announced it has acquired real-time payments provider Dovetail Group Ltd. Terms were not announced. Payments provider Spectrum Payments said it joined the National Rural Health Association as a pipeline partner, enabling it to offer merchant services to association members. Blockchain technology firm BTCS Inc. said it has signed a non-binding letter of intent …
• 18 August

  Aging Systems, Absence of a Mandate Among Faster-Payments Hurdles, Report Says

  

  A number of daunting challenges face the U.S. payments industry as it sets out to make speedier transactions available everywhere in the country within three years, according to a report released this week by Aite Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. Among these challenges are the absence of an industrywide mandate …
• 18 August

  Revel Adds Data Integration Service for Multiple Business Functions

  

  Tablet-based point-of-sale provider Revel Systems announced Thursday it will offer data-integration services from Dsync to its merchants. Australia-based Dsync provides systems-integration services that enable businesses to view disparate types of data in a single Web-based site. For example, Dsync says it can connect systems used to manage inventory, payments, e-commerce sites, …
• 18 August

  Milestone: Global Payments Launched the VAR/ISV Trend Five Years Ago With its APT Buy

  

  It didn’t get a lot of press at the time, but the acquisition by merchant acquirer Global Payments Inc. of Accelerated Payment Technologies in 2012 proved to be the starting point of big acquirers pairing up with integrated software vendors and value-added resellers to deepen their relationships with merchants. Atlanta-based …
• 18 August

  P20 Group Seeks Worldwide Payments Sway and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  

  A global payments initiative called P20 will convene its first meeting Oct. 10 in London. Government officials and regulators from the United Kingdom and the United States are expected to attend, along with 20 payments-industry leaders. The conference is intended to promote the importance of payments and financial technology to …
• 17 August

  Payments Firms Cancel Accounts for White Supremacist Groups After Charlottesville Violence

  

  In the wake of violent clashes last weekend between white supremacist groups and counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va., payments companies are cutting off access to their systems that supremacist groups use to accept donations. Pressure on the payments firms began building not long after a female counter-demonstrator was fatally struck by …