News

April, 2011

• 11 April

  Help Wanted: Wizards in Prepaid Card Marketing and Branding

  Regulatory pressures, the public’s lack of awareness of prepaid cards, and negative publicity from consumer groups and the media are weighing on prepaid card executives’ minds, according to new findings from Aite Group LLC. Researchers from Boston-based Aite polled 24 senior executives during March’s Prepaid Expo USA conference in Orlando, …
• 7 April

  How POS Cash Back on Debit Is Crimping ATM Transaction Growth

  U.S. debit card holders received cash back on just over 1 billion point-of-sale purchases in 2009, according to new figures from the Federal Reserve. That statistical nugget and others in the Fed’s 2010 Payments Study help to explain why ATM operators are struggling to keep transaction volumes up. The Fed …
• 7 April

  Demographics, Transit Helped Drive Salt Lake Selection, Isis Says

  Local demographics and the availability of a mass-transit system that uses contactless technology for fare payment chiefly accounted for the decision by Isis, the joint venture formed late last year and led by major wireless carriers, to launch its first pilot next year in Salt Lake City, Utah,  Isis’s head …
• 5 April

  Common in Acquiring, Sharing of Bad-Merchant Data Comes to the ACH

  Taking a cue from bank card merchant acquirers, bank processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) and NACHA on Monday announced the formation of the Terminated Originator Database, a new service to help banks identify businesses that other banks have cut off from originating automated clearing house transactions because of …
• 4 April

  Ingenico To Buy Hypercom Assets, Installs New North American Boss

    Ingenico S.A. will buy part of point-of-sale terminal maker Hypercom Corp.’s U.S. assets as VeriFone Systems Inc. prepares to complete its acquisition of Hypercom under a deal the companies announced Monday. France-based Ingenico also installed the head of its Australian unit, Thierry Denis, as its new North American president. …
• 4 April

  The Fed’s Same-Day ACH Service Gets off to a Slow Start

  More than eight months after it introduced same-day settlement for automated clearing house transactions, the Federal Reserve has attracted only a handful of banks for the service. “It’s been a long struggle,” Steven Cordray, retail payments project manager at the Atlanta Fed’s Retail Payments Office tells Digital Transactions News. Speaking …
• 3 April

  Account Takeover Fraud Starts to Plague Businesses, AFP Study Shows

  Checks caused most of the losses suffered by businesses victimized by payment fraud in 2010, which is no surprise. Businesses, however, are now falling victim to newer types of fraud, particularly account takeovers, that fraudsters have used against consumers in recent years, according to the Association for Financial Professionals’ latest …

March, 2011

• 31 March

  ViVOtech Reveals It Is Kicking the Tires of Hypercom’s U.S. Assets

  ViVOtech Inc., a payment hardware and software provider specializing in near-field communication (NFC) technology, on Thursday said it is interested in buying the U.S. assets of Hypercom Corp., the point-of-sale terminal maker in the process of being acquired by rival VeriFone Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif. Santa Clara, Calif.-based ViVOtech …
• 31 March

  3 Million Transactions And Counting: Starbucks Scores Early Mobile Success

  Mobile payments may be a nascent business fraught with uncertainty, but Starbucks Coffee Co. seems to have found a key to success. Last week, the company revealed that more than 3 million transactions have taken place on its smart-phone-based prepaid payments system, which became available in all U.S. company-owned stores …
• 30 March

  Buried by Letters, the Fed Delays Issuing Its Debit Card Rules

  Overwhelmed by the volume of comments it received, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Tuesday said in letters to Congress the Fed would miss Congress’s April 21 deadline to have issued final debit card interchange and network regulations. Bernanke, however, said the Fed still plans to meet the …