News

January, 2011

• 24 January

  Consumers Still Skeptical of Mobile Payments, But Attitudes May Change Soon

  Despite the hype about mobile payments, most consumers still aren't comfortable using smart phones to pay for things, according to new research from the Bank Administration Institute and Hitachi Consulting. That, however, could change, and change soon. The study also shows that debit remains consumers' preferred payment choice, though its …
• 20 January

  PayPal Sees Durbin As ‘Neutral to Positive’ for Foreseeable Future

  The drastic reduction in debit card interchange revenue mandated by the Durbin Amendment will be somewhat favorable for PayPal Inc., an official with the e-commerce processor’s parent company said on Wednesday. “In the short and the medium term, we believe it’ll probably be neutral to positive on our performance,” said …
• 20 January

  Durbin Challenger Cooper of TCF Says, ‘I Told You So’

  It was an “I-told-you-so moment” Thursday morning for William A. Cooper, the outspoken chairman and chief executive of TCF Financial Corp. Cooper said many bankers dismissed TCF’s assertion that the Federal Reserve Board, in carrying out the dictates of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law’s Durbin Amendment, would cut debit card interchange …
• 20 January

  Breach Investigations Show Alarming Advances In Malware

  Hackers continue to improve malware, third-party vendors continue to serve their clients poorly when it comes to data security, and the evidence points to Russia as the single biggest source of attacks on databases. Those are some of the highlights in the new Global Security Report 2011 from Trustwave Holdings …
• 19 January

  Eye on Mobile: Starbucks Pilot Goes National, Acculynk Goes Mobile, And Mitek Logs Clients

  In the largest U.S. chainwide expansion yet seen in mobile payments, Starbucks Coffee Co. announced on Wednesday it is extending its proprietary, prepaid mobile payments pilot to all of its U.S. company-owned stores. The move brings the chain’s Starbucks Card Mobile App to almost 6,800 stores and increases the number …
• 19 January

  Tenacious Cash Is Here for the Long Term, Report Says

  Cash: It’s still everywhere electronic payments want to be. Despite decades of gains by credit and debit cards, electronic commerce, the automated clearing house, and now mobile payments, cash is hanging on and will do so for many years, according to new findings from Aite Group LLC. Consumers spent $1.20 …
• 18 January

  Online Fraud Rate Drops, But ‘Cleaner’ Fraud Poses a Bigger Threat

  Good news for online merchants: In 2010, for the second year in a row, fraud losses expressed as a percentage of revenue went down. They came to 0.9%, down about $600 million from 1.2% in 2009, according to the latest research from CyberSource Corp., a unit of Visa Inc. that …
• 14 January

  Intuit, North American Bancard Bring Free Card Readers to Mobile Payments

  Mobile payments are getting increasingly competitive, and this week the competition ratcheted up even more. Intuit Inc., maker of the QuickBooks accounting software for small businesses, is now offering a free credit card reader for smart phones to merchants using its GoPayment mobile service. Intuit also is waiving monthly service …
• 13 January

  Acquirers Will Benefit from Durbin, But Gain Could be Short-Lived

  In the wake of the Federal Reserve Board’s proposed interchange caps for debit cards, as well as Visa Inc.’s decision to introduce dual interchange tables for debit, much discussion has focused on the impact of radically reduced interchange income on issuing banks. But an often overlooked factor concerns just how …
• 13 January

  The Treasury Department Tries Out a Tax-Refund Prepaid Card

  Following through on a tax-season initiative it announced last September, the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday launched a pilot program that could enable more than half a million low- and moderate-income individuals to receive tax refunds via prepaid cards. Next week, the Treasury Department will begin sending letters to 600,000 …