News

February, 2016

• 5 February

  Despite ‘EMV Cloud,’ Cardtronics Pushes Forward With Growth Plans

  Look for more ATM placements, capital spending, and possible acquisitions by leading retail ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics Inc. in 2016. The growth plan mostly conforms to the long-term strategy the company has been following in recent years, according to comments by top Cardtronics executives late Thursday. Houston-based Cardtronics …
• 4 February

  Eye on Branding: Vantiv Renames Mercury and Element; PayPal Debuts ‘New Money’ Campaign

  Vantiv Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. are, separately, creating new looks for their brands. Vantiv, which bought integrated-payments specialist Mercury Payment Systems LLC in 2014  for $1.65 billion, is renaming Mercury and Element Payment Services, an integrated-payments provider it purchased in 2013, as a single unit called Vantiv Integrated Payments. This …
• 4 February

  Visa Opens Scores of Its APIs to Developers in a Bid To Speed Payments Innovation

  In a move that recognizes the powerful role application developers play in the global payments arena, Visa Inc. on Thursday opened scores of its application programming interfaces to thousands of outsiders worldwide, including merchants, banks, and technology companies. The new program, called Visa Developer, embraces some 155 APIs and includes …
• 3 February

  Eye on Acquirers: Charge Volumes and Processing Revenues Grow for Vantiv and Heartland

  Two leading merchant acquirers, Vantiv Inc. and Heartland Payment Systems Inc., are reporting strong transaction growth in their most recent financials. Boosted in part by its first full year of owning Mercury Payment Systems, Symmes Township, Ohio-based Vantiv on Wednesday said its Merchant Services segment processed 19 billion transactions in 2015, …
• 3 February

  Eye on Fraud: EMV Spurs Fraud Increase, Says Javelin; Landry’s Reports a POS System Breach

  A new report finds that fraud activity is surging, while Landry’s Inc. says it has uncovered malware on its point-of-sale system and removed it. Identify fraud is on the rise, finds the 2016 Identity Fraud Study released Tuesday by Javelin Strategy & Research. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based research firm found that …
• 3 February

  Eyeing the Market for ‘On-Demand’ ACH Transfers, Dwolla Launches Its Latest API

  It’s common for consumers who use a recurring service to designate a credit or debit card that the service provider can charge each month. With the automated clearing house, this is much less common. Dwolla Inc. says that’s because it’s too difficult and time-consuming for most businesses to set up …
• 2 February

  Apple Pay Survey Shows Flat-Lining Adoption and Usage, but Most Users Like It

  A new study of smart-phone users shows awareness and usage of Apple Pay is slightly down from last spring, providing yet more evidence that the much-touted mobile-payments service from Apple Inc. hasn’t set the world on fire. On the plus side, the December survey of 1,279 consumers for First Annapolis …
• 2 February

  Look, Ma, No Card! How Cardless ATMs Could Help Push Mobile Wallet Adoption

  The introduction of cardless ATMs, which rely on a financial institution’s mobile wallet instead of a debit card to make an ATM withdrawal, could help further the adoption of mobile wallets and mobile payments. That’s the assessment of Jerimy Saldivar at Peoples Bank, a Bellingham, Wash.-based financial institution with 24 …
• 1 February

  Longer Checkouts for EMV Don’t Seem To Be Fazing Consumers in the Early Going

  When the U.S. rollout of EMV cards started in earnest last year, many experts predicted consumers would soon tire of the time-consuming chip-reading routine, putting pressure on the payments industry to usher in contactless EMV and more mobile wallets. But that’s not happening, at least not all that much and …
• 1 February

  How Mobile Marketing Can Help Boost Mobile-Wallet Adoption And Usage

  Just as there are two sides to every coin, there’s a second side to the mobile wallet beyond payments. It’s marketing. That’s one of the takeaways from a recent survey from Vibes, a Chicago-based mobile-marketing specialist. Though the survey of more than 1,000 smart-phone owners found that only 32% of …