High-end department-store chain Nordstrom Inc., which has been testing some 6,000 mobile devices for customer service and checkout, expects to roll out a significantly larger number of the devices in the first quarter of next year and to add as much capability to them as it has on its cash …
May, 2012
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29 May
ClearXchange Goes National But Faces Rivalry from PayPal, Fiserv
A year after its birth announcement, the clearXchange person-to-person payments platform finally is set for its first national rollout through a new service called Send & Receive Money from one of its three big-bank owners, Wells Fargo & Co. But clearXchange, whose other owners are Bank of America Corp. and …
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25 May
Reports Indicate Groupon Is Joining a Crowded Field of Mobile-Acceptance Players
Just as payments executives were preparing to plunge into the Memorial Day holiday weekend, reports emerged that Groupon Inc. is testing a mobile-acceptance application in and around San Francisco. The reports, which are based in part on a solicitation received via e-mail by a merchant, indicate that the Chicago-based daily-deal …
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24 May
Card-Not-Present Processor Litle Reports Durbin Has Cut Debit Interchange in Half
Online merchants and other card-not-present retailers that have so-called interchange-plus agreements with their acquirers are enjoying significantly lower transaction costs thanks to the Durbin Amendment, if research from processor Litle & Co. posted on Wednesday is any indication. Litle’s numbers indicate its client merchants have seen interchange costs cut in …
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24 May
PayPal Signs 15 New Retailers for POS, Plus Terminal Makers and App Developers
PayPal Inc. on Thursday announced that 15 more retailers had joined its point-of-sale initiative, which means the No. 1 alternative-payments provider is now more than three-quarters of the way toward meeting its stated goal of having 20 national retailers accepting PayPal at physical stores by the end of 2012. PayPal …
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23 May
Dodd-Frank’s Consumer Bureau Starts to Mull Regulations for Prepaid Cards
The federal government’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fixed general-purpose reloadable prepaid cards in its regulatory sights Wednesday with a notice of proposed rulemaking and a public hearing in Durham, N.C., where its senior officials heard both praise for and condemnations of the cards. The CFPB said it would examine …
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22 May
Eye on Prepaid: AmEx Strikes a Deal With Zynga While Green Dot Signs Dollar Tree
American Express Co. extended the reach of its Serve digital and prepaid card platform with a rewards program it announced on Tuesday with leading online game developer Zynga Inc. The big prepaid card program manager Green Dot Corp., meanwhile, disclosed a distribution deal with Dollar Stores Inc. and the renewal …
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21 May
Tyfone Announces Patents for Design that Reduces NFC Antennas for Mass Production
Tyfone Inc. on Monday announced it has been awarded a pair of U.S. patents that the Portland, Ore.-based company says should make it easier to manufacture in commercial quantities key elements for mobile payments based on near-field communication (NFC) technology. NFC is a two-way contactless technology that allows, for example, …
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16 May
PCI Council’s Latest Mobile Guidance Doesn’t End Freeze on App Approvals
The PCI Security Standards Council on Wednesday published guidance on how merchants can accept card payments through smart phones and tablet computers while protecting sensitive cardholder data. The guidelines, however, do not bring to an end an 18-month-old freeze the council has imposed on approvals of software applications for mobile …