News

October, 2008

• 9 October

  Time Is Short, But Revolution Money Sticks to Million-Merchant Goal

  Revolution Money Inc., the upstart that bills itself as merchants' low-cost alternative to the established card brands, this week announced that Murphy Oil USA Inc. is now accepting its RevolutionCard. It's a notable win for Revolution Money as Murphy has nearly 1,000 gas stations in 20 states, most located in …
• 8 October

  More Big Merchants Comply, But PCI Likely Still Foreign to Small Fry

  New data from Visa Inc. show more of the largest merchants now meet the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI. But the level of validated PCI compliance among small merchants?the overwhelming majority of businesses that accept credit and debit cards?likely remains much lower. Visa's latest figures show 81% of …
• 8 October

  Plenty of Upside for eBay in Bill Me Later Deal, Experts Say

  Ebay Inc.'s $945 million acquisition of online payment processor Bill Me Later Inc., announced this week (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 6), places a powerful payment-generating tool in the online auctioneer's hands and simultaneously denies that tool to competitors like Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., experts tell Digital Transactions News. And …
• 7 October

  BART Pilot Results Prove Case for Multiaccount NFC, First Data Says

  Results from a pilot in San Francisco involving multiple accounts on cell phones equipped with specialized contactless-payment capability show that consumers will readily adopt such technology as a form of wallet and as a way of accessing marketing content, says an executive with the processor involved in the pilot. In …
• 6 October

  Bill Me Later Extends eBay’s Payments Reach to Top Web Retailers

  In praising online credit payment system Bill Me Later Inc. Monday morning, PayPal Inc. President Scott Thompson called Bill Me Later a “disruptive business” in the positive sense, and he credited PayPal for also being a disruptive payments player. And disruption of the status quo is quite possible with today's …
• 3 October

  Visa Could Score a Debit Win As Wachovia Jilts Citi for Wells

  Just a week ago, it looked like MasterCard Inc. was about to win a battle in its ongoing debit card war with market leader Visa Inc. MasterCard stalwart Citigroup Inc. had struck a deal to buy, with help from the government, most of struggling Wachovia Corp.'s banking assets, including Wachovia's …
• 2 October

  Reputation, Products, Free Terminals Rank High in ISO Selection

  Not all merchants choose independent sales organizations and acquirers the same way, and when they do, they do so for widely disparate reasons, says a research report released this week by Aite Group LLC, Boston. Yet “ISOs and acquirers are not differentiating among merchants” with respect to direct marketing and …
• 2 October

  Visa Looks to Imaging ATMs to Offer Prepaid Card Reloads

  Prepaid cards usually get reloaded through direct deposit or when the cardholder takes cash to a merchant, who then swipes the card and receives confirmation that the value has been credited to the card. Now Visa Inc., in an effort to expand its Visa ReadyLink prepaid card reload network, is …
• 1 October

  New Version of PCI Shows More Flexibility, While PABP Takes Hold

  After a summer of discussion, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council on Wednesday officially released Version 1.2 of the PCI data-security standard, the sweeping set of rules for protecting Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB cards and transactions. Wednesday also is the first day for a Visa Inc. …
• 1 October

  An ACH-Based Bill-Pay Pilot Promises Fee Income to Banks

  An electronic bill-presentment and ?payment system that uses the automated clearing house network picked up some momentum recently with the addition of a second participating bank to its pilot program and could gain more as processors serving thousands of banks start linking to the system. Dollar Bank, a Pittsburgh-based thrift, …