News

September, 2008

• 23 September

  A Bill Moves Ahead That Would Limit Scope of Online-Gambling Law

  Congress is preoccupied with bailing out Wall Street and mortgage-loan holders, but a bill quietly passed the House Financial Services Committee last week that payment-industry interests hope will become law before the 110th Congress adjourns. That's H.R. 6870, “The Payments System Protection Act of 2008,” a measure that would clarify …
• 22 September

  ISOs Are Bullish About Pay-at-Table Market Despite Sour Economy

  Although observers report the economic downturn has soured many restaurants on so-called pay-at-table technology for the time being, some independent sales organizations see opportunity in the market and are moving ahead with plans to exploit it. Alpine Payment Systems, an ISO in Vancouver, Wash., that processes payments for about 100 …
• 22 September

  Electronic Bill Pay Growing, But No Bonanza in Expedited Payments

  Yet another bill-payment study is out, and this one not surprisingly predicts electronic channels will continue displacing mail and other forms of manual payment. More surprising is how soon electronic payments will surpass physical forms of payment: next year, according to Aite Group LLC. Aite forecasts consumers will make 10.2 …
• 19 September

  Debit Rivalry Heats up with National City, RBS Shifts to Visa

  With National City Corp. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc moving portfolios into its camp, Visa Inc. scored two big debit card wins over MasterCard Inc. this week in the bank card networks' ceaseless struggle to curry issuer and merchant favor. Analysts say the payment industry can expect to …
• 18 September

  Moneris Fills a Gap With Its Pending Humboldt Acquisition

  Merchant acquirer Moneris Solutions Inc. reported on Thursday that it has an agreement with the federal government to buy the assets of Humboldt Merchant Services, a Eureka, Calif.-based acquirer with nearly $2.5 billion in annualized charge volume, 18,000 merchants concentrated in California and other western states, and a strong network …
• 18 September

  Funding in Hand, eBillme Zeroes in on Consumer Cash Preference

  Sensing a strong shift among consumers away from credit and toward cashlike payment, ModaSolutions Inc.' s eBillme online-payment system plans to pump a large share of its resources into recruiting new merchants and funding promotions with those merchants to attract more buyers, the company's top executive says. Much of the …
• 17 September

  Mobile Access, Rising Fees Lift Potential in Expedited Payments

  A new study by Javelin Strategy and Research has a bit of good news about last-minute, or expedited, bill payments and about another hot topic, mobile payments. Some 45% of the consumer group Javelin calls “mobile bankers” make an expedited payment at least once a month compared with only 30% …
• 16 September

  An Over-the-Air Test Could Move NFC Closer to Commercial Use

  A successfully completed test of specialized mobile technology developed jointly by a U.S.-based maker of contactless-payment readers and software and a German smart card manufacturer could bring closer the commercialization of mobile phones that make point-of-sale payments in the same way contactless cards do. The test, whose results were announced …
• 16 September

  Payments Changes at eBay Go Well Beyond Tossing out Checks

  When eBay Inc. announced its all-electronic payments policy last month, the move triggered what an eBay executive calls a “mixed” response, at best, from the online marketplace's sprawling seller community. But the policy changes go beyond banning checks and money orders on eBay. They include requirements that will force third-party …
• 11 September

  A Hot Item for Years, NACHA’s ARC Begins to Cool off

  After years of torrid growth, the automated clearing house's electronic-check code for lockbox payments has seen its expansion slow almost to a halt. The second-quarter numbers in the accounts-receivable conversion (ARC) standard entry class (SEC) could be just a blip, or they may reflect a permanent shift toward non-paper bill …