News

November, 2014

• 18 November

  Remain Calm: Mobile Pay Will Boom, but It Doesn’t Warrant a Media Frenzy, Analyst Says

  Mobile-payments volume will nearly triple from $51.5 billion this year to $141.7 billion in 2019, according to a new report from Forrester Research Inc. That’s pretty exciting news for payments networks, processors, banks, tech specialists, and others with a stake in the budding sector. But wait. Even with all that …
• 17 November

  Airport Renovation Includes iPads Where Passengers Can Spend Airline Miles

  Before the emergence of Bitcoin and other such alternative currencies, people collected and traded airline miles. Many still do, which is what United Airlines and OTG Management, an operator of restaurants in 10 North American airports, are counting on. The two companies on Monday announced holders of United frequent-flyer miles …
• 16 November

  Major Prepaid Card Providers Give a Polite Response to the CFPB’s Proposed Regs

  Some of the nation’s largest prepaid card companies are either giving a public thumbs up to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed regulations for prepaid card accounts or at least not saying they’re spoiling for a fight with the federal government. Steve Streit, chairman and chief executive of Pasadena, Calif.-based …
• 14 November

  Pala Interactive To Use Optimal Payments for Its Online Gaming Service

    Pala Interactive LLC, an online gambling operator, will use payment-processing services from Optimal Payments Plc, Optimal announced this week. Online gambling revenue in the United States is forecasted to be $2.6 billion by 2017, according to one estimate. Another estimate, from Odobo and H2 Gambling Capital, forecasts $7.7 billion …
• 14 November

  While Google Wallet Is Ditching Digital Goods, It’s Likely to Stick with Other Markets

  Google Inc.’s decision to kill its application programming interface for digital-goods sales may have more to do with the expense and complexity of the market than with any underlying strategy to retreat from the digital-wallet business overall, experts say. Google on Thursday announced it will shut down the 2-year-old API …
• 14 November

  PayPal Turns to InComm To Boost Digital Gift Card Presence

    PayPal Inc. will use electronic gift card services from InComm Holdings Inc., a move that will enable PayPal to expand the number of retailers’ gift cards that it sells on the PayPal Digital Gifts store and in the eBay marketplace. PayPal, a unit of San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc., …
• 13 November

  Mocapay Seeks Wider Distribution Through a New Link With Merchant Link

  By Jim Daly Mocapay Inc., one of the nation’s pioneers in mobile payments, hopes to expand its small footprint through a new distribution agreement announced this week with Merchant Link, a gateway and data-security service owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s merchant-acquiring unit, Chase Paymentech. Founded in 2007, Denver-based Mocapay …
• 13 November

  Survey Pinpoints Arizona City As Top Chargeback Location As ‘Friendly Fraud’ Continues to Plague Online Retailers

    Want to know where the chargebacks are coming from? Chargebacks911 has ranked the top five U.S. cities in terms of chargeback rates, placing a ZIP code in Show Low, Ariz., with a 2.2% rate, at the top. The study of 500,000 chargebacks of e-commerce transactions made in 2013 indicates …
• 13 November

  The CFPB Proposes Strong Federal Protections for Prepaid Card Accounts

  By Jim Daly The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday unveiled proposed regulations for prepaid accounts that for the first time would bring to prepaid cards many of the federal protections that currently apply only to credit and debit cards. The CFPB’s plan would limit consumers’ losses when funds are …
• 13 November

  Lightning-Fast Data And Funding Approvals Have Led to Big Growth in the Kabbage Patch

  In short order, competition in the business of funding small merchants has ratcheted up to new highs, with new, online and technology-based entrants flooding the market. One of the most recent, and successful, of these new entrants is Atlanta-based Kabbage Inc., which this year will hit the $500 million mark …