Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
End-to-end encryption of payment card data is all the rage among vendors to the merchant-acquiring industry, but vendors themselves believe it will take a long time for merchants to begin using their new technology. Asked how long they believe it will take for the majority of U.S. card-accepting merchants to …
May, 2010
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6 May
The Senate Attaches Interchange Regs to Financial-Reform Bill
The battle over interchange regulation continues to heat up, with the introduction this week of amendments to financial regulatory reform legislation pending in the U.S. Senate that would target the controversial fees charged to merchants. The three amendments, sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and co-sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, …
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4 May
MasterCard Spots Signs of a Turnaround in Cardholder Spending
Despite what MasterCard Inc. executives labeled a “strong quarter” of earnings, U.S. credit card purchase volumes continued to fall in the three months ending March 31. In addition, MasterCard’s debit card count dropped by 1.6% even though debit transaction volumes grew.But signs of both an “underlying momentum of our business …
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4 May
MasterCard Aims for Faster Authorizations, More Message Data
While Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are shelling out big bucks for the loyalties of card issuers and merchants (Digital Transactions News, April 29), they’re also adding technological muscle to attract more transaction volume to their networks. In the latest example, MasterCard on Monday announced a host of upgrades to …
April, 2010
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29 April
Both Credit & Debit Rise for Visa, Along with Acquirer Fees
Visa Inc.'s U.S. debit card purchase volumes again put on a strong performance in the quarter ending March 31 and the battered credit card sector continued a revival first seen in late 2009. Merchant acquirers, however, are paying more to process Visa transactions, and they can expect another price increase …
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28 April
As Its PayPal Program Unfolds, Star Zeroes in on Online PIN Debit
Six months after announcing it will process online PIN-debit transactions through PayPal Inc., the Star electronic funds transfer network has signed a number of member banks for the new service, with “implementations in progress,” says Julie Saville, vice president for product management at Star. Despite the tie-up with PayPal, however, …
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28 April
Congress Breaks Its Silence on Interchange with a New Hearing
After months of inactivity on interchange regulation, the U.S. House of Representatives judiciary committee on Wednesday held a hearing on one bill advocated by national merchant groups. And while the committee took no action, one merchant group views the hearing as a hopeful sign that legislation will be passed. The …
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27 April
NACHA Taps The Clearing House to Help Commercialize EBIDS
Capping a process that began last fall, NACHA announced a partner on Monday to help commercialize a system it has been piloting that lets consumers receive and pay bills electronically through the automated clearing house network. The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, a New York City-based company whose Electronic Payments …
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27 April
Square Founders Get Rock Star Welcome But Give Few Details
The founders of the much-hyped Square Inc. payments system may have wowed a full-house crowd of bankers on Monday, but they added little to public understanding of how their product will actually work and how it will stack up competitively with similar offerings for mobile merchants. While polite and talkative …
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22 April
Ebay Chief Touts PayPal Innovation As Processor Logs Strong Results
Online auctioneer eBay Inc. on Wednesday said its PayPal Inc. unit has generated more than $30 million in payments so far on the open platform it introduced in November. Thousands of developers have now written applications using application programming interfaces PayPal has introduced for the platform, eBay officials said, allowing …