Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
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 …
May, 2012
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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 …
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16 May
Payments Players Start to Look to EFT to Speed up P2P Transactions
Internet PIN-debit technology provider Acculynk Inc. this summer will start a pilot for a person-to-person payment system that will rely on PIN authentication and debit card network links for money movement. The Atlanta-based company has commitments for the project from between 20 and 30 financial institutions that use Acculynk for …
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15 May
Weeks Away from Launch, Isis Announces Its First Batch of Merchants
For months, the carrier-backed Isis mobile-payments initiative could boast just one accepting merchant, the Utah Transit Authority in Salt Lake City, one of two cities it plans to launch its service in this summer. That changed on Tuesday with the announcement that Isis has signed some 50 retail companies both …
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15 May
In Wake of FBI Report, Bitcoin Backer Says Benefits Outweigh Risk of Criminal Use
A Federal Bureau of Investigation report warning that criminals could use the electronic currency Bitcoin for money laundering and other illicit activities does not reflect the majority of activities for which the currency is actually used, a Bitcoin developer tells Digital Transactions. “Asking Bitcoin if they have a response to …
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14 May
Errors Plaguing Online Bill-Payment ‘Sausage Factory’ Total $720 Million in Costs
Those missing account numbers or little typos consumers make when paying bills can cost billers and others in the payments chain big bucks to fix. A recent study for automated clearing house governing body NACHA pegs the annual cost of such exception processing at about $720 million. More bad news: …