News

December, 2014

• 23 December

  U.S. E-Commerce To Approach $500 Billion by 2018, but Physical Stores Will Remain Open

  Americans will spend nearly half a trillion dollars on e-commerce in 2018, with 70% of the U.S. population making online purchases, but e-commerce still will not account for even 9% of total retail sales, according to a new global forecast from research firm eMarketer Inc. In contrast, e-commerce will capture …
• 23 December

  ComScore: Online Spending by PC up 15% Since Nov. 1, With $5 Billion Yet to Come for ‘14

  Just going by the headlines, you’d think mobile is the prime mover in the payments business. But desktop PCs still dominate online sales, and for the holiday-shopping season they’ve been ringing like cash registers. Since the official start of the season on Nov. 1, consumers using PCs have registered $48.3 …
• 22 December

  Bitcoin Enjoys Steady Growth, But Experts Ask Where the Case Is for Consumer Use

  Since 2012, investors have poured $407 million into Bitcoin startups, with three-quarters of that sum flowing into the cryptocurrency just this year, according to figures compiled by CoinDesk, a Bitcoin newsletter. But now at least one expert is expressing doubts that these investors will see much of a return—if any—on …
• 22 December

  Small Banks on the Hook for $90 Million in Home Depot Breach; Staples Updates Breach News

    Small banks spent $90 million to reissue 7.5 million credit and debit cards in the wake of a payment-card data breach at The Home Depot Inc., says the Independent Community Bankers of America association, which has more than 6,500 member banks. First publicly known in September the Home Depot …
• 22 December

  MasterCard Expands Its Outreach to Software Developers With a Global ‘Hackathon’

  MasterCard Inc. opened up its payment network to third-party software developers in 2012 and since then has participated in a number of regional “hackathons” in which developers create applications that link to MasterCard network services. Now MasterCard is expanding its footprint in the developer space by sponsoring what it calls …
• 22 December

  Forgot About HCE? RBC Puts It Front And Center Again With Its Latest Pilot

  Remember host card emulation? You might have lost sight of this variant of mobile payments based on near-field communication amid the flood of publicity Apple Inc.’s SIM-based Apple Pay service generated this fall. But HCE never went away, and now Royal Bank of Canada is making a bid to put …
• 19 December

  As Merchants Add Digital Goods, They Must Adapt Their Anti-Fraud Efforts, Expert Warns

  Digital goods have matured way past ringtones for a mobile phone. And with that, merchants need to adapt their anti-fraud measures, suggests LexisNexis, a Dayton, Ohio-based risk-services company. Today’s consumers are completely comfortable buying books, movies, and apps for the smart phones, tablets, and computers, Aaron Press, LexisNexis Risk Solutions …
• 18 December

  Anti-Fraud Costs Add up Fast, But Are Unknown to Most Merchants, Survey Finds

    Fraud-prevention efforts typically intensify during the holiday-shopping season, but many marketers don’t know what those efforts cost them, finds a survey from 41st Parameter, a data-technology company owned by Experian plc. In a survey of 250 marketers, 60% said they were unsure about the cost of fraud prevention to …
• 18 December

  CorFire Acquisition Bolsters Mozido’s M-Commerce Presence at Home and Abroad

  Mobile-payments platform developer Mozido Inc. expanded its footprint in the budding industry sector with its announcement Thursday that it acquired a majority interest in CorFire, a U.S. m-commerce subsidiary of South Korea-based information-technology provider SK C&C. Mozido already provides the MoTeaf white-label payments platform as well as various person-to-person, bill-payment, …
• 17 December

  With Holiday Gift Card Sales Wilting, Issuers Will Have to Push Harder, Add Digital

  The earliest known example of a closed-loop gift card was offered during the Christmas holiday season in 1916 by Hampton’s Quality Store in Eugene, Ore. The store advertised a “Christmas Glove Gift Card” that could be given to a lady, allowing her to redeem it for the gloves she wanted. …