News

March, 2012

• 29 March

  EBay Promotes Mobile Veteran Marcus to PayPal President As POS Thrust Gains Steam

  EBay Inc. on Thursday named long-time telecommunications entrepreneur David Marcus as the new president of its PayPal Inc. e-commerce payments unit. Marcus, who as vice president of mobile at PayPal has been shaping the San Jose, Calif.-based processor’s strategic shift into physical-world payments, succeeds Scott Thompson, who left PayPal in …
• 28 March

  Western Union Offers Walk-in Plus Online Bill Pay with New WU Pay Service

  The Western Union Co. took a decisive step into digital payments and online shopping with the launch last week of the WU Pay platform. The platform allows shoppers in the U.S. to pay for online purchases from their existing bank accounts or in cash at Western Union agent locations. Customers …
• 27 March

  Groupon Deal for FeeFighters Points up Rewards Brokers’ Need for Acquiring Ties

  Groupon Inc.’s acquisition of a Web site that lets processors bid for merchant contracts represents a big opportunity for the online rewards giant but also underscores the dependence of such services on the merchant-acquiring business, a researcher who follows acquiring says. In the deal, announced on Friday, Groupon bought FeeFighters, …
• 26 March

  Monitise Heightens Its U.S. Mobile-Payments Profile With Pending Clairmail Deal

  British mobile-banking and payments technology provider Monitise plc announced a $173 million deal Monday to buy San Rafael, Calif.-based Clairmail Inc. that will give Monitise a much bigger U.S. presence in mobile financial services and further consolidate a market nurtured by startups but feeling the increasing presence of international card …
• 23 March

  Processor JetPay Takes Some Flak But Keeps Flying After Direct Air Bankruptcy

  n “The bankruptcy court in question agreed with our motion that the escrow account is for the consumer,” Trent Voigt, chief executive of JetPay LLC of Carrollton, Texas, told Digital Transactions News moments after a hearing ended in the case of Southern Sky Air & Tours LLC, doing business as …
• 22 March

  Vantiv Joins the Ranks of Publicly Traded Payment Processors

  Vantiv Inc. began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday with the symbol VNTV, having priced its shares late on Wednesday at $17, the mid-point of its estimated opening range. The Cincinnati-based payment processor saw its initial offering of 29.4 million shares raise just shy of $500 million. …
• 21 March

  Dwolla Readies Pilot for Near-Instant Funds Movement with 16 Financial Institutions

    n The private beta, as Dwolla dubs its test, will open up to consumers within “ a couple of months,” Charise Flynn, the Des Moines, Iowa-based company’s chief operating officer, tells Digital Transactions News. n About 60 people are involved in the test currently, Flynn says, though most of …
• 21 March

  Payments Fraud at Companies Moderates, But Remains at High Levels, AFP Says

  Payments fraud against companies moderated during 2011, with the share of companies experiencing payments fraud falling to the lowest level since 2004, according to the Association for Financial Professionals’ latest annual study of corporate payments fraud. Nevertheless, the level of fraud remained elevated, with the majority of organizations reporting attempted …
• 21 March

  Phrased Out: Amazon Kills PayPhrase, Offers Businesses Multiuser Service

  Amazon.com Inc. quietly killed its PayPhrase online-authentication service on Feb. 20, not quite two-and-a-half years after introducing the system. The PayPhrase credentials system allowed online shoppers to check out using only a word or phrase of their choosing and a PIN that they had registered with the Amazon Payments service. …
• 19 March

  Studies: Gift Cards Preferred to Higher-Value Gifts, While Many Prepaid Holders Are Banked

  As the prepaid card market matures, more data are emerging about surprising consumer behavior regarding prepaid cards or that challenge the conventional wisdom. For example, research commissioned by big processor First Data Corp., a major player in the prepaid space, found that given a choice between taking a gift or …