Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Good news for independent sales organizations: authorization costs continued their long-term decline over the past two years, according to a recent industry survey. Not-so-good news: clearing and settlement costs have stopped declining, customer-service costs are rising, and processors are eyeing new fees to generate revenues from ISOs. Omaha-based The …
May, 2013
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16 May
Google Issues Flurry of Wallet News, But No Version 2.0 So Far
Google Inc. released a trio of announcements on Wednesday concerning its Google Wallet mobile-payments application, but even taken together these did not add up to the major overhaul of the product that Google promised last fall. Google’s news included: a Wallet-based person-to-person payments service that works with Gmail, Google’s …
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15 May
Tablet-Based Launches Come with Pricing Deals to Attract Merchants
The nascent trend toward tablets as cash-register replacements took several big steps forward this week, as technology players and at least one processor unveiled major promotions, including free transaction processing and other pricing deals, to entice small businesses to adopt mobile payments. On Wednesday, merchant processor Vantiv Inc. launched …
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13 May
ATM Heists and Global Payments Hack Demonstrate Havoc from Processor Breaches
Three recent breaches at payment card processors show just how much damage such breaches can do, and provide reminders about how hacked companies do their best to say as little as they can about them publicly. Federal authorities say the latest two breaches, which garnered worldwide headlines in recent …
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13 May
Google’s Decision to Ditch Its Card Adds to Search Giant’s List of Woes in Wallets
Google Inc.’s apparent decision to abandon its plan to launch a plastic card as part of its Google Wallet service is yet another sign of how major mobile-wallet players from outside the payments business are struggling to find a winning strategy, sources tell Digital Transactions News. News of the …
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9 May
Google Wallet’s Cloudy Future Becomes Even Cloudier with the Departure of Bedier
Osama Bedier, vice president of Google Wallet and payments at search-engine giant Google Inc., has left the company, Google said on Thursday. Sources tell Digital Transactions News that Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s senior vice president of ads and commerce who also manages search advertising and shopping services, is now heading up …
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9 May
Checkout Proves To Be the Achilles Heel of Mobile Commerce
Mobile devices may be making it easier for consumers to shop anywhere online, any time, but high shopping-cart abandonment rates are preventing them from cashing in big on this new sales channel. A recent survey by payments-and-authentication- services provider Jumio Inc. reveals that two-thirds of respondents attempting to make …
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7 May
Eye on Mobile: An Update from the Fed’s Working Group; Mobile Market Shares
n Mobile payments remains a fragmented business with established financial-services players battling it out with startups and telecommunications giants. And progress for near-field communication (NFC), a snazzy, two-way contactless technology that once promised to revolutionize mobile payments, is still coming with painful slowness, according to the paper. n While …
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7 May
Mitek Prepares To Duke It out in Court with USAA over Disputed Patents
It looks like mobile-deposit software developer Mitek Systems Inc. and its former ally USAA Federal Savings Bank will be going to the mat in their their patent dispute. Despite a near tripling in revenues to $3.22 million, Mitek on Tuesday reported a $2.39 million loss for fiscal 2013’s second …
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6 May
Officials Give Some Hints to Acquirers on How To Stay in Washington’s Good Graces
Often regarded as the enemy, officials from the federal government gave some friendly advice to merchant acquirers last week about what regulators are concerned with regarding payments, including mobile payments, prepaid cards, and fraud control. The recommendations came during a government panel Thursday at the Electronic Transactions Association’s annual conference …