A new point-of-sale card-acceptance app expected to be available in early 2014 will use pattern-recognition technology to capture a payment card number, potentially speeding up an in-store transaction and eliminating the need for a card reader. n Cartwheel Register eschews a card reader that plugs into the audio jack in …
December, 2013
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5 December
SimplyTapp, the Power Behind Google’s NFC Workaround, Aims at Mobile Banking
Ever since Google Inc. stunned the payments business early last month with its mobile operating system update that skirts the secure element for near-field communication, all eyes have been on a tiny startup in Austin, Texas, called SimplyTapp Inc. The 2-year-old company, with six full-time employees, has kept busy answering questions …
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4 December
Rising with Holiday Shopping, Chargebacks Are on the Naughty List for Most Merchants
Chargebacks may not be lumps of coal, but many merchants may consider them as such this holiday season. n Chargebacks are the process by which cardholders contest charges they didn’t make or don’t recognize when they receive their statement. A chargeback filing typically requires a merchant to dig up supporting …
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3 December
Digital Gift Cards Come Into Their Own As Holiday Promotions Spur Sales, ‘Self-Giving’
Only a few years old, digital gift cards are soaring in popularity as U.S. consumers head into the heart of the holiday shopping season. Total loads on the products will reach $1.3 billion for November and December, a nearly four-fold increase from the same two-month stretch last year, according to …
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3 December
Co-Op Financial Services Brings in FIS And Enhances Its Sprig Mobile Wallet
Co-Op Financial Services, a vendor and network provider to 3,500 credit unions serving 30 million debit card holders, is upgrading its Sprig mobile wallet with technology and services from the big processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) and its PayNet payment network. Sprig’s upgrade comes at a time when …
November, 2013
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26 November
Interchange Relief And Other Carrots Needed To Spur U.S. EMV Conversion, Analyst Says
Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards will come to the U.S., but probably not before the payment card networks postpone current deadlines and offer strong incentives for merchants that might include interchange relief and dumping the signature as a cardholder- verification method, according to a new research report from Celent LLC. Card …
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26 November
Postponement of October 2015 U.S. EMV Liability Shift Is Likely, a DTN Poll Finds
The first major deadline in the transformation of U.S. credit and debit cards from magnetic-stripe tokens to smart cards embedded with a chip is just under two years away. Come October 2015, the liability for fraudulent transactions shifts to merchants that do not support the chip card standard EMV. n …
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26 November
Payment Vendors Line Up to Serve Gamblers As States Okay Online Gaming
Online commerce has hit a trifecta of sorts. New Jersey on Tuesday became the third state, in addition to Nevada and Delaware, to allow some forms of online gaming. And with its debut, more payments companies are at work on providing services to gaming operators and their users. n Registered …
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25 November
Mobile Now Accounts for 37% of Transactions at Money-Transfer Upstart Xoom
Mobile devices, which have fundamentally changed so much of the electronic payments business, are now shaking up the cross-border remittance market. Twelve-year-old Xoom Corp., a relative newcomer to the business, says 37% of its transactions in the third quarter originated on mobile devices, compared to 22% a year ago. More …
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25 November
Apple Job Posting Suggests It May Have a New Payments Platform on the Drawing Board
An Apple Inc. job posting seeking a software engineer with expertise in payments may be an indicator of an Apple play in payments beyond its current efforts. Or, it may not. The computer and retail giant is looking for a senior software engineer to “help build a next generation payment …