Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Jim Daly The Canadian government’s move last week to strengthen its Code of Conduct for the payment card industry and the European Union’s approval in March of rock-bottom interchange rates for credit and debit cards has observers wondering if more regulation is in store for the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry. …
April, 2015
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17 April
Wearables Users More Likely to Use Digital Banking And Mobile Wallets, Research Says
Apple Inc. and American Express Co. may be catching a wave. Users of wearable technology like fitness bands and smart watches—the kind of gadgets AmEx and Apple are mixing with payments and financial services—are not only younger and wealthier than owners of smart phones and tablets, they’re also more likely …
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17 April
Retailers Eye EMV as a Near-Term Reason for POS System Upgrades
Retailers will take their time upgrading their point-of-sale systems for compatibility with the EMV chip card standards, finds EKN Research’s “2015 Retail Point-of-Sale Blueprint” report. Only a minority of retailers—mostly the largest ones—will be ready by Oct. 1, though within two years 70% of them will be ready for the …
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17 April
Despite Its Woes, AmEx Manages To Report Respectable First-Quarter Financials
By Jim Daly Coming off a winter of discontent, American Express Co. late Thursday reported some respectable financial results for the first quarter. The loss of its relationships with Costco Wholesale Corp. in Canada, however, affected charge volumes, a prelude to the loss of Costco as a merchant acceptor and …
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16 April
In the Wake of Its Data Breach, Target Settles With MasterCard for $19 Million
By Jim Daly Continuing its effort to get a massive data breach behind it, discount retailer Target Corp. announced Wednesday a $19 million settlement with MasterCard Inc. to compensate banks and credit unions for the fraud and card-reissuance costs they incurred for their MasterCard-branded credit and debit cards affected by …
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16 April
NACHA Reports Nearly 5% Volume Growth for the ACH Network in 2014
On the heels of healthy quarterly growth, NACHA reported Thursday that the automated clearing house network handled nearly 23 billion electronic transactions in 2014, up by 1 billion payments, or nearly 5%, from 2013. Dollar volume was up more than 3%, to more than $40 trillion. These overall volume numbers …
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16 April
The Ultimate Payment Machine? FIS’s ‘Garage’ Explores In-Car Payments
The newest market for payments may one day lie inside a more than 100-year-old machine: the car. Just as payments is evolving to incorporate watches and fitness trackers, so too are futurists looking at how payments might make the move to cars. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Information Services Inc. is …
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15 April
New POS Malware Hides in Plain Sight
Criminals have developed a new family of point-of-sale malware that hides in plain sight, riding along with core processes inside Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, says Chicago-based Trustwave Holdings Inc., which uncovered the malware during a recent U.S. Secret Service investigation. Dubbed “Punkey” because of the “unkey” command within its …
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15 April
New Bill-Pay App Aims To Get Employees Off the Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck Treadmill
By Jim Daly A new mobile app from an Atlanta startup that uses remote-capture software provider Mitek Systems Inc.’s imaging technology aims to have workers automatically time the payment of routine bills with their pay days, thereby helping consumers escape the pitfalls of living paycheck to paycheck. “That’s exactly what …
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14 April
NACHA Stats Show Nearly 5% Growth for the ACH in 2014’s Holiday Quarter
All things considered, the holidays were kind to the ACH. Transactions on the automated clearing house network grew 4.7% in the final three months of 2014 compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, while dollar volume moved by the network climbed 4.9%, according to statistics from NACHA, the governing body …