Square Inc. introduced its payroll service for small businesses last June in California, and in the eight months since then Square Payroll has proven to be popular enough that the company added two more states in November and on Wednesday said it is expanding into five more. But while Square …
February, 2016
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18 February
M-Commerce Logged a Banner Fourth Quarter, With Smart Phones Outpacing Tablets
U.S. consumers apparently held onto and used their smart phones and tablets even more than one might suspect given the increase in mobile-commerce transactions during the fourth quarter of 2015, reports Criteo, a New York City-based online marketing specialist. In its “State of Mobile Commerce Report,” released Wednesday, Criteo said …
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18 February
The PCI Council Plans an Early Release of Its Updated Data-Security Standard
The PCI Securities Standards Council said Wednesday that the next iteration of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard will be coming in the first half of this year, probably in March or April, about six months earlier than called for in the current update cycle. The new version, dubbed PCI …
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17 February
Security Questions Arise as Biometrics Gain Ground in Authentication
With biometric authentication now enabled in millions of smart phones and the focus of intense technological development, some payments experts are warning that biometric data can, just like old-fashioned passwords, be stolen, potentially leading to big problems for consumers and payment-service providers. “Biometrics are sure to proliferate in the next …
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17 February
Eye on EMV: Merchant Adoption Shortfall; Visa Chip Card Tally Tops 212 Million
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 …
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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 …