Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
A new data-security service announced on Tuesday by heavyweight players in payment processing and data security?First Data Corp. and EMC Corp.'s RSA unit, known as The Security Division of EMC?is expected to boost a technology called tokenization, the replacement of cardholder account numbers with surrogate numbers or “tokens.” Since the …
September, 2009
-
21 September
NACHA Proposes to Use WEB for Mobile Payments, for Now
The rules-setting body of the automated clearing house plans to classify mobile ACH transactions under the existing WEB code rather than create a new code for such payments, at least for the short term. Mobile payments could get their own code some time after 2010. Those ideas are part of …
-
17 September
Processing Fees Are Lower, But Big And New Clients Benefit Most
Merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations are paying about 10% less for authorization and back-end transaction processing services than they did in 2007, according to new study by The Strawhecker Group. But, not surprisingly, big acquirers get the best pricing, and new clients of service providers are getting better deals …
-
17 September
Merchants Urge That U.S. Follow Overseas Example on Interchange
Merchants turned up the heat on banks and the bank card networks on Thursday by releasing a report showing that interchange fees in the U.S are much higher than in other countries, and arguing that policymakers in the U.S. should regulate interchange as have their counterparts overseas. “We want to …
-
16 September
PCI, Remote Capture Get a Wary Eye Among Some Health-Care Officials
Retailers have complained the loudest about the cost of complying with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, but comments Tuesday at a health-care payments conference indicate that medical providers also incur considerable expense to secure their card-accepting payment systems. PCI-related costs come to about $100,000 a year for …
-
15 September
A Google Checkout Glitch Raises Doubts About Alternative Payments
Google Inc. has apparently fixed a weeks-old problem with its Google Checkout online-payments system that prevented merchants from processing recurring transactions, such as subscription fees. While Google says the little-publicized glitch affected only a small number of merchants, other observers say this and outages experienced by other alternative payment services?such …
-
14 September
Aldi Grows While Bucking Grocers’ Trend Toward Card Acceptance
Dozens of U.S. grocery-store chains added credit card acceptance in the 1990s, when consumers began asking to use the cards and merchant acquirers saw a ripe new market. Grocers acquiesced to keep their customers happy and because the payment card networks offered interchange breaks or other incentives. But not Aldi, …
-
13 September
Don’t Hire a QSA by Seeking the Lowest Bid, Warns Heartland’s Carr
Among lessons learned by Heartland Payment Systems Inc. after the massive data breach at the merchant acquirer last year: Don't necessarily hire the qualified security assessor (QSA) offering the lowest bid, says Robert O. Carr, chairman and CEO. Processors and merchants need to hire QSAs in the same way they …
-
10 September
Rising Costs And a PCI Upgrade Drive Gas Sellers to Reconsider PIN Debit
Rising processing costs and Visa Inc.'s mandate that point-of-sale terminals be upgraded to do Triple-DES encryption for PIN-based debit transactions are prompting gas sellers to rethink PIN debit acceptance. Fuel sellers are talking about dropping PIN debit because of the hike in cost for authorization, says Branden Williams, director of …
-
10 September
A Pitch to Newspapers Highlights Google’s Plan for Micropayments
With the popularity of digital content on the rise, processors are starting to see opportunity in a business that seemed moribund only a few years ago?handling transactions that average roughly $5 or less. The latest entrant, or, more properly, entrant-to-be, in this business is Google Inc., which is working on …