News

January, 2017

• 23 January

  Report: Internet of Things Could Present an ‘Unmanageable Cybersecurity Risk’

  

  Like other technology forecasters, Juniper Research in a new report predicts the Internet of Things is poised for explosive growth. But the IoT also represents “an unmanageable cybersecurity risk” unless its developers take preventative action, Juniper says. In its report, “Internet of Things for Security Providers: Opportunities, Strategies, & Market …
• 23 January

  DiningData Marks $1 Billion in Processing Volume and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • Processing-software vendor Womply has launched an analytics tool called Retention Intelligence to help acquirers identify merchants likely to leave the portfolio. • A 2-year-old startup called diningData, which processes payments and analyzes data for restaurants, announced it is now handling $1 billion in annual volume. The company is a division of Hadfield …
• 23 January

  Eye on Travel: Host Card Emulation for Ticketing, And a Mobile Wallet Guide for Airlines

  

  Travel providers have new options for accommodating how consumers use their smart phones to pay for travel. Ticketing-software vendor Rambus Ecebs has introduced a set of products for mobile ticketing that rely on host card emulation to load smart cards into smart phones. Host card emulation enables download of payment credentials via …
• 20 January

  How Dwolla Turned Away from Consumer-Facing Payments to White-Label APIs

  

  It’s taken about a year, but Dwolla Inc. has now executed a strategic shift away from handling online and mobile transactions directly for consumers who want to pay merchants and each other. Instead, the 8-year-old, Des Moines, Iowa-based company now focuses on selling programming to clients that want to process …
• 20 January

  AmEx Steps on the Marketing Gas Pedal To Help Fill Costco Void

  

  Fourth-quarter profits and U.S. charge volume declined while marketing expenses increased for American Express Co. as the company continued to dig its way out of the hole left last year by the termination of its U.S. cobranding and acceptance pact with Costco Wholesale Corp. New York City-based AmEx reported Thursday …
• 20 January

  Dwolla Lines Up $6.8 Million in Funding and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • Payments provider Dwolla Inc. announced a $6.85 million round of funding led by Union Square Ventures and Foundry Group. The funds will be used to expand sales and account-management operations at the company’s Des Moines, Iowa office. Dwolla also said it is moving its white-label products into a new collection of application …
• 19 January

  With Help From Contactless, E-Payments Globally Could Be Taking a Bite out of Cash

  

  The digital-payments revolution may finally be poised to relegate cash to the sidelines of finance. Worldwide, 471 billion so-called cashless transactions flowed through payments networks in 2015, a 52% increase since the end of 2011 and up 13% over 2014, according to numbers released this week by Retail Banking Research …
• 19 January

  Twitter Abandons its Buy Button and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • Mastercard Inc. and investor and philanthropist George Soros announced plans “to explore private-sector solutions to societal challenges” by possibly creating a so-called social enterprise called Humanity Ventures that will apply commercial strategies to address such problems as joblessness and lack of access to health care and education. Soros might …
• 19 January

  Western Union Will Pay $586 Million to Settle Feds’ Claims of Lax Anti-Fraud Controls

  

  The Western Union Co. will pay $586 million to the federal government to reimburse consumers victimized by fraud as a result of the company’s allegedly lax supervision of agents and anti-fraud and money-laundering controls. The settlements announced Thursday are a result of investigations that covered payments involving the smuggling of …
• 19 January

  Payment Options And Security Matter, But It’s Price And Shipping Costs That Kill Online Deals

  

  Shipping costs and the total price are two primary inhibitors for consumers shopping online, found a survey from FuturePay Inc., which provides financing for online purchases. Indeed, 86% of the 1,500 consumers surveyed in the fourth quarter cited the cost of shipping as the top reason they opted not to …