Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Patience, it seems, will be the watchword when it comes to merchant adoption of EMV chip card technology, while the number of cards issued bearing a chip continues to grow. A new report from The Strawhecker Group, a payments consultancy, finds that 37% of U.S. merchant locations are EMV-ready, falling …
February, 2016
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16 February
Look for Dominance by Smart Phones in Mobile Commerce Very Soon, Report Says
The onset of 2017 will usher in the year of the smart phone in e-commerce, according to a projection released Tuesday by eMarketer Inc. The New York City-based researcher says that next year, for the first time, more than half of all so-called digital buyers—51.2%—will make at least one purchase …
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16 February
Consumers’ Low Risk Perception Buoys Cardless ATM Cash Transactions for FIS
While backers of cardless ATM transactions expected consumers to home in on using their smart phones as remote controls for making cash withdrawals, what wasn’t known was how much they understood about the risks from skimming and threats to their financial privacy. As it turns out, that understanding is pretty …
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15 February
Can PAR Keep Tokens Out of the Payments Sand Trap?
A new data element is getting a lot of discussion in merchant-acquiring and mobile-payments circles. It’s the so-called Payment Account Reference, or PAR, and it’s meant to associate all the payment tokens linked to a single credit or debit card primary account number, or PAN. But implementing PAR could be …
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12 February
MoneyGram Reports Growth in Digital Channels Amid Mixed Results for 2015
Dallas-based MoneyGram International Inc. posted a mixed set of financial results for all of 2015 and for the fourth quarter as it looks to continued growth in its online business. The money-transfer specialist also said Thursday it has settled for $13 million a legal inquiry into its fraud-prevention measures. For …
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12 February
Visa’s Real Square Stake
Editor’s note: Read the latest by clicking here. A spate of media reports that Visa Inc. owns nearly 10% of Square Inc. are wrong and are based on a misreading of a filing Visa made Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a person familiar with the matter …
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12 February
Visa’s Stake in Square Is a Whole Lot Lower Than a Widely-Reported 10%
It was all over the financial press Friday morning that Visa Inc. owned nearly 10% of merchant processor Square Inc. But it turns out that Visa’s real stake is a tad lower—try less than 2%. The news stories, which started with a Reuters report out of India, were based on …
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11 February
Payments Execs Already Foresee the Store Checkout Yielding to ‘Uberesque Approach’
While mobile wallets, near-field communication, and EMV have focused all eyes in the payments industry on the physical point of sale, some mobile-payments executives are starting to prepare for what they see as the fading away of the traditional checkout counter. Technology already exists that allows customers to order ahead …
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11 February
Fiserv’s Popmoney Will Let P2P Recipients Claim Their Cash At Accel ATMs
Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based bank core processor, says its Popmoney peer-to-peer money-transfer service will get a tweak later this year to enable recipients to go directly to an ATM to retrieve funds. Currently, funds sent via Popmoney must be deposited into an eligible account. The new service, dubbed Popmoney …
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11 February
ETA Releases Updated Underwriting Guidelines for Acquirers and ISOs
As promised, the Electronic Transactions Association has updated its 2014 guidelines for merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations on merchant underwriting and monitoring. And more updates are likely as technology and regulators keep the pressure on merchant processors to stay ahead of risks to the payment system. “We really want …