Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
A demand-deposit account is the anchor liquidity instrument for most consumers and businesses. For some members of the unbanked, it’s a GPR-prepaid-card account. Policymakers and commercial actors are moving to enable real-time payments between DDAs at thousands of U.S. banks. Policymakers aim to improve payment-system efficiency and enable new and …
December, 2016
-
5 December
The Feds Plan To Create a National Bank Charter for Fintech Companies
The U.S. Treasury Dept.’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, plans to create a special-purpose national bank charter for financial technology companies, a booming field in which payments firms play prominent roles. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry divulged the planned charter during a speech Friday at …
-
5 December
A New App Lets Supermarkets Get in on the Trend Toward E-Commerce in the Store
Few consumers like waiting in lines to pay, especially at grocery stores. One California grocery chain is taking steps to make it easier for shoppers pay for their purchases with the launch of a self-checkout app. The California Fresh Market location in San Luis Opisbo, Calif., is using Future Proof …
-
2 December
Holiday Spending Grows 5.8% and other Digital Transactions News briefs
• In a study of more than 900,000 merchants, processor First Data Corp. says retail spending from Thanksgiving through CyberMonday (Nov. 28) grew 5.8% from year-earlier levels; brick-and-mortar retailers saw spending grow 4.1% while e-commerce spending jumped 14.3%. • European software firm Comtrade Digital Services has built an automated banking platform for the Viber messaging app, …
-
2 December
Visa’s Deal for CardinalCommerce Comes As Fears Rise Over Online Fraud, False Declines
In a move that expands its business as a provider of risk-control services for merchants and card issuers, Visa Inc. announced Thursday that it has a deal to acquire e-commerce payment-authentication provider CardinalCommerce Corp. Founded in 1999, Mentor, Ohio-based CardinalCommerce’s signature product is Cardinal Secure Authentication, a service that uses …
-
2 December
The Fed Leaves Durbin Cap Unchanged Despite Ongoing Drop in Issuers’ Debit Card Costs
The Federal Reserve will leave the current interchange cap on debit card transactions in place, the agency announced this week as part of its biennial review of the regulation formally known as Regulation II, but commonly called the Durbin Amendment. The Fed’s controversial rule implementing the amendment in 2011 imposed …
-
1 December
The NRF Predicts Holiday Gift Card Spending Will Rise 6% This Year
The National Retail Federation predicts consumers will spend $27.5 billion on gift cards this holiday season, up 5.8% from $26 billion in 2015. The increase follows the 18% plunge last year from $31.7 billion in 2014, which was the highest gift card spending total in at least seven years on NRF surveys. …
-
1 December
Visa, MasterCard Postpone 2017 Fuel-Pump EMV Liability Shifts for Three Years
Citing the difficulties that gas stations are having in retrofitting fuel pumps to accept EMV chip cards, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are postponing their Oct. 1, 2017, EMV liability shift for U.S. automated fuel dispensers (AFDs) until Oct. 1, 2020. Visa announced the postponement in a blog posting early Thursday. The …
-
1 December
Why Holiday Gift Card Loads Will Perk up
Retailers can expect a bump up in the dollars consumers load on closed-loop gift cards this holiday season as a festive spirit takes hold and more merchants favor the cards over holiday discounts, according to a forecast released last month by payments consultancy Mercator Advisory Group. “Retailers are expecting that …
