News

February, 2017

• 21 February

  As Retailers Ramp Up Their Mobile Wallets, Android Pay Also Expands Its Reach

  

  By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews As retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. ramp up their mobile wallets, the tech companies that offer general-purpose SimplyTapp Inc. developed the original HCE technology. Google, now the main subsidiary of Mountain View, Calif.-based Alphabet, included HCE in late 2013 in Android 4.4, also …
• 20 February

  In the Cascade of Retailer Mobile Apps, Store Cards, Brand Strength Will Matter

  

  By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Not all private-label charge and prepaid card programs are equally successful, and so neither will be the proprietary mobile wallets recently launched by merchants. Factors that are likely to lead to a successful app include the strength of the retailer’s brand, its commitment to either convenience …
• 20 February

  Ingenico Readies Its POS App Marketplace for U.S. Merchants And Acquirers

  

  By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group is bringing its POS app store based on its Telium Tetra operating system to the United States this year, company officials tell Digital Transactions News. POS apps enable merchants to load and use business software than can help with employee scheduling, manage …
• 20 February

  A Health Care Payment Option Launches and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • Abilene Diagnostic Clinic has adopted the One Bill solution from health-care payments processor InstaMed, allowing patients to deal with a single statement embracing all ADC locations. • In related news, Change Healthcare, a specialist in analytics software, introduced Personalized Communications for its billing and payments solution. The new service is aimed at billing …
• 17 February

  U.S. Chip Card Saturation Helps Bring Global EMV Growth Nearly to a Standstill

  

  By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Big markets like the United States and China have been boosting EMV chip card shipments for years, but now those two growth engines are sputtering. Worldwide contactless EMV. Currently, most EMV cards in the U.S. market require users to insert the card into a chip reader …
• 17 February

  TouchSuite Buys American Bankcard and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • TouchSuite, a merchant-services company operated by American Bankcard LLC, announced it purchased Merchant Bankcard Systems of America, which has approximately 1,000 merchants in its portfolio. Terms of the deal, which closed Feb. 7, were not disclosed. • Middleware provider Datacap Systems Inc. said it completed level 3 EMV certification with …
• 16 February

  Visa Takes Another Step Toward IoT Payments, With the Help of IBM’s Watson Platform

  

  By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A year ago, Visa Inc. expanded its Visa Ready program beyond mobile point-of-sale terminals to support tokenized payments on a wide variety of Internet-connected devices. On Thursday, the payments company took the next step in that plan, announcing a collaboration with IBM Corp. that will allow …
• 16 February

  Retailers’ Late EMV Conversions Continued To Plague Blackhawk in Late 2016

  

  By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The lingering impact of some retailers’ slow conversion to EMV chip card acceptance continued to plague prepaid card services provider Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. in the fourth quarter. Blackhawk reported late Wednesday that revenues fell short of its expectations in part because of a “continued EMV headwind” …
• 16 February

  Chase Payments Extends Referral Plan and other Digital Transactions New briefs

  • First Data Corp. expanded its deal with ShopKeep, a cloud-based point-of-sale provider, that makes ShopKeep’s POS software available through its distribution network. ShopKeep also will incorporate First Data’s payment processing and security tools. This includes the Clover Go software developer kit and enables ShopKeep software to operate on Clover hardware. • …
• 16 February

  Canadian Small Businesses To Get an Interchange Cut From Mastercard

  

  Small merchants that belong to the 109,000-member Canadian Federation of Independent Business will get interchange reductions of 12.5% or more on Mastercard purchases beginning April 3 under a deal announced Thursday by the CFIB and Mastercard Inc. The new rates will be available to CFIB members through all Canadian merchant …