News

January, 2009

• 19 January

  That Sucking Sound Is the Downdraft in Big Banks’ Charge Volumes

  The latest credit card charge-volume figures from the nation's top three banks show big declines, portending weak results when other issuers, merchant acquirers, and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. report their fourth-quarter earnings in coming days. On Friday, Bank of America Corp. reported fourth-quarter purchase volume of $56.6 billion on …
• 19 January

  MasterCard: Paper Not Opening Salvo in ’09 Interchange Wars

  Interchange, the most controversial part of credit and debit card pricing, is the subject of a background paper MasterCard Inc. posted on its Web site last week, just ahead of the inauguration on Tuesday of a new president and his administration. A MasterCard spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News the document …
• 15 January

  The Challenge Confronting PayPal, Google, And Amazon

  This is the third installment of a six-part series on how Web 2.0 developments are likely to transform the payments business. The online marketplace is morphing to payments embedded in top-line oriented-marketing services, and integrated infrastructure where small retailers can share the scale and cost savings of bigger players. Both …
• 15 January

  Century Payments Forms to Pursue Opportunities in Acquiring

  Some experts have predicted that the recession would create opportunities in the merchant-acquiring businesses, especially if independent sales organizations or other merchant processors decide to sell their portfolios or seek well-capitalized partners. Those opportunities seem to be just what venture-capital firm Austin Ventures is pursuing with the creation of Century …
• 15 January

  Maverick Launches with Merchant-Issued Debit Cards, Prepaid Cards

  Processors' experimentation with debit cards is taking on even more variety with the entry of Wilmington, Del.-based startup Maverick Network Solutions Inc. into the market. Maverick, which has brought together a handful of long-time payment-industry executives and received $1.5 million in venture funding in December, expects to begin a pilot …
• 15 January

  How Some Retailers Have Bolstered Their Gift Cards’ Firepower

  Closed-loop gift cards are not the new kids on the block any more, but some retailers in 2008's holiday shopping season found ways to wring more usage out of their cards despite the faltering economy and bad press about gift cards. That's the word from a newly released market assessment …
• 13 January

  Banking Processors Quietly Grab Market Share in Mobile Services

  Mobile-banking installations grew by 44% last year, and should more than double in 2009 as the technology picks up even more momentum. But the vendors serving this market, often startups without other product lines, now face potent competition from processors that have entered the business only recently and are already …
• 12 January

  Entrenching Itself with Merchants, First Data Enhances Its POS Line

  Merchant processor First Data Corp. bolstered its position as an up-and-coming provider of point-of-sale payment terminals today with the unveiling of one new and one retrofitted terminal in its FD line of hardware. The devices will help First Data shore up its offerings to check-accepting and multimerchant card-accepting locations. In …
• 8 January

  With Breaches Rising, Insurer Offers Card-Compromise Coverage

  Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. this week unveiled what it says is the first coverage available to small and medium-sized businesses for losses from payment card data breaches. News of the policy came on the same day that a non-profit research organization reported that data breaches increased 47% last year. The …
• 8 January

  Behind Wausau’s Plans to Recruit ISOs to Sell Remote Deposit Capture

  Independent sales organizations are in the cross hairs of at least one vendor of check-transaction processing software looking for ways to sign up more merchants for a product that lets businesses turn paper checks into images they can transmit electronically to their banks. Wausau Financial Systems Inc. this spring will …