News

May, 2013

• 22 May

  How Mobile Check Capture Is Taking a Toll on Banks’ Branch Networks

  The primary reason consumers and small-business owners visit banks is to cash or deposit checks, but mobile capture removes that purpose, says Gary Brand, director of source capture optimization at Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based vendor of processing technology for financial institutions. “Something’s really happened, all of a sudden [banks …
• 21 May

  Google Checkout, Once a PayPal Rival, Will Shut Down in Six Months As Google Pushes Wallet

    The nearly 7-year-old Google Checkout online payment service, once touted as a rival to PayPal, will cease operations in November, Google Inc. announced in a blog post on Monday. In the post, online-search kingpin Google Inc. says it is “retiring” Checkout as part of a “transition to Google Wallet,” …
• 21 May

  LevelUp Sweetens a Merchant’s Loyalty Program And Adds NCR As a Point-of-Sale Partner

  A plan to expand its footprint in mobile payments by offering white-label applications to merchants is quickly paying dividends for LevelUp, the mobile-payments unit of Boston-based SCVNGR Inc. Washington D.C.-based Sweetgreen, a 17-location chain of organic salad shops, has become the first LevelUp merchant to roll out a branded mobile-payment …
• 17 May

  ISOs’ Authorization Costs Decline, But Other Processing Expenses Are on Their Way Up

    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 …
• 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 …
• 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 …
• 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 …
• 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 …
• 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 …
• 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 …