Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Diners visiting a Tim Hortons restaurant in Canada and the United States now have a new way to pay for their meals and coffee. The restaurant chain, which has more than 3,600 Canadian locations and 870 in the United States, has added a mobile-payments function to its smart-phone app. …
May, 2014
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21 May
Criminals Eyeing More Personal Information in Online Attacks, Finds a Trustwave Report
Payment card data remains a top target for criminals, but personally identifiable information, such as birth dates and addresses, is growing in favor among them, finds the 2014 edition of the Trustwave Global Security Report. Based on an analysis of 691 data-breach investigations conducted in 2013 by Chicago-based security-services …
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21 May
Veteran ‘Payments Guys’ Create Bitnet to Ease Bitcoin Acceptance for Large Merchants
Bitcoin may remain volatile and controversial, but the digital currency holds enough potential that it is starting to attract seasoned payments professionals, particularly in the business of merchant acceptance. Witness Bitnet, founded in January by a pair of former executives with payments processor CyberSource Corp. to make it easier for …
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20 May
EMV Commercial Card Issuers May Herald PIN Dominance With Consumers
It’s still very early in the U.S. smart card game, but so far chip-and-PIN authentication dominates among commercial card issuers, according to new research by First Annapolis Consulting Inc. The findings could signal that chip-and-PIN will beat out chip-and-signature authentication as the United States prepares for broader smart card issuance …
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20 May
For Added POS Security, Wal-Mart Asks Some Cardholders To Enter a Verification Code
In an unusual tactic to thwart credit card fraud, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. nearly a year ago quietly implemented a policy in which its point-of-sale terminals prompt some cardholders to enter their card’s verification number, a code normally used for card-not-present transactions such as mail-order/telephone order (MOTO) and Internet purchases. The …
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19 May
Sberbank, Biggest Bank So Far to Adopt Host Card Emulation, Aims for 3 Million Users
The mobile-payments variant known as host card emulation captured its biggest financial-institution backer yet with a deal between Russia’s Sberbank and Sequent Software Inc. Sberbank will launch a commercial service “later this year” using HCE software from Mountain View, Calif.-based Sequent, an official with the bank tells Digital Transactions News. …
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19 May
Gnome Tablet POS System Relies on BLE to Ease Groupon Redemption In Stores
Yet another tablet-based point-of-sale system has joined the fray, this one from daily-deal provider Groupon Inc. Dubbed Gnome, the iPad-based system not only accepts credit and debit cards, but is the centerpiece of a Bluetooth low energy-enabled setup to enable Groupon offers redemption without requiring the consumer to present a …
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15 May
Most Contend Only a Minority of Merchants Will Be Ready for EMV, Finds a DTN Survey
In 17 months, a crucial step in the migration of the U.S. payment card industry from the venerable magnetic stripe to smart cards with embedded chips will be under way. But there is little hope that a majority of merchants will be ready to accept the new cards, finds a …
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15 May
Venture-Capital Firms Place Their Bets on Bitcoin Merchant-Services Provider BitPay
Law-enforcement agencies and government regulators may be skeptical of, if not outright hostile to, the Bitcoin virtual currency, but at least a few investors have a different attitude. Witness this week’s announcement by BitPay Inc., a processor that provides Bitcoin services to merchants. Atlanta-based BitPay said it had raised $30 …
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14 May
Isis Hits 20,000 Activations Per Day, Doubling Daily Rate from Previous Month
The Isis mobile-wallet consortium said Wednesday it is activating new wallets at the rate of 20,000 per day. That rate, achieved over the last 30 days, represents a doubling of the rate Isis saw in the previous 30-day period, the company said. The upbeat news from Isis comes as some …