News

June, 2015

• 29 June

  Xoom Faces Growing Competition From PayPal and Traditional Wire-Transfer Rivals

  Despite its strengths, online wire-transfer provider Xoom Inc. faces increasingly tough competition from newer market entrants such as PayPal Inc., which is taking its popular Venmo person-to-person payments service abroad, and from established agent-based providers such as The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc., which are increasing their online …
• 26 June

  Eye on Security: NCR Warns of New ATM Attack Method; Breach Suspected at Theme Park

  Leading ATM manufacturer NCR Corp. this week issued a warning about a new variant of card skimming that gives an ATM user no clue that the machine’s card reader is stealing debit card information. Meanwhile, a report says payment cards used at a theme park in Hershey, Pa., may have …
• 26 June

  EMV Confusion Helps Lift Encryption to Top of Merchants’ Security-Tech List

  By Kevin Woodward Encryption technologies, which mask sensitive card data with mathematically derived characters and numbers, appear to be the security method that resonates best with merchants. That’s the result of a Digital Transactions News survey that asked about EMV, tokenization, and encryption. Forty-five percent of respondents cited encryption, followed …
• 26 June

  PayPal and eBay Will Officially Go Their Separate Ways July 17

  Directors of online auction and e-commerce giant eBay Inc. on Friday formally approved previously announced plans to separate eBay from its big payments subsidiary, PayPal Inc. The separation becomes official July 17, when, under a stock distribution plan, eBay shareholders of record on July 8 will get one share of …
• 26 June

  Rushing to Beat U.S. EMV Deadline, Fraudsters Push up U.K. Cross-Border Debit Loss

  America’s tardiness in adopting EMV chip card technology has long been known to contribute to rising rates of fraud here, but now it appears the country’s plans to convert to EMV are, ironically, causing pain overseas. Fraudulent cross-border transactions on debit cards issued in the United Kingdom increased 25% in …
• 25 June

  With New Funding, PayRange Targets Contactless Payments in Vending Machines

  With $12 million in new funding, PayRange Inc. wants to place more of its Bluetooth-equipped dongles inside vending machines to enable more consumers to make contactless, and cashless, payments. The funding, announced Thursday by Portland, Ore.-based PayRange, will be used to expand its staff and increase the number of PayRange-equipped …
• 24 June

  How Its PocketMath Deal Bolsters XpressBuy’s Push for Multiplatform Buy Buttons

  While social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest develop so-called buy buttons for the ads they sell, third-party developers are looking at extending the same technology across not only social networks but apps, mobile sites, and even emails. One of the most aggressive of these developers, Santa Clara, Calif.-based XpressBuy …
• 24 June

  COMMENTARY: Common Errors in Merchant Funding And How To Fix Them

  As I see it, there are three main areas of vulnerability for merchant cash-advance (MCA) providers: 1. Incorrectly assessing the risk. What systems do you have in place for being able to analyze and manage your risk? Many MCA funders come into the market with six months’ runway and then …
• 23 June

  Canadian Parliament Report Recommends a ‘Light Touch’ in Virtual-Currency Regulation

  As states and national governments consider regulations for virtual currencies, a new report from a Canadian Senate committee recommends a “light touch” lest regulation stifle a promising young industry. In considering any legislation, regulations or policies, the Canadian federal government should “create an environment that fosters innovation for digital currencies …
• 22 June

  Money Taps Are Turned on Full for Payments Startups As a Record Year Looms

  The gold rush in payments-startup financing that began about a year ago is likely to be even bigger in 2015, according to the latest report from CB Insights, a New York City-based investment-research firm. Last year set a record for startup funding, with $2.23 billion pouring into new payments companies. …