News

December, 2008

• 17 December

  Schools And State Agencies Eye NACHA’s Online Payment System

  Secure Vault Payments, the online payment system that NACHA has been piloting since last spring, is catching on as a bill-payment alternative among colleges and state agencies, says Kendall Myles, the executive who is heading up SVP merchant recruitment for NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network. …
• 17 December

  Terminal Kingpin VeriFone Doesn’t See a Turnaround Until 2010

  Largely confirming what it projected in late November, point-of-sale terminal provider VeriFone Holdings Inc. says North American business from independent sales organizations and merchant processors was off in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Oct. 31, and prospects for fiscal 2009 aren't much better. San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone eked out a …
• 16 December

  RemitPro Launches All-in-One Pricing for Remote Deposit Capture

  Seeking to expand its market for software and services that allow merchants to submit checks for electronic processing, Omaha, Neb.-based RemitPro Inc. is introducing what is says is the only offering that bundles a check scanner, remote deposit capture software, transaction service, and maintenance in one package for a single …
• 12 December

  United Bank Card Looks for Growth from New POS Product Line

  At a time of rising business failures and intense industry competition, United Bank Card Inc. says its new Harbortouch unit is producing what the big independent sales organization sought?enhanced merchant relationships and higher margins. In addition to card processing, Harbortouch offers small and mid-sized restaurants and retailers business-management hardware and …
• 10 December

  Online Merchants May Have a Tougher Time with Fraud in 2009

  While online merchants managed to keep a lid on fraud losses in 2008, a faltering economy could make 2009 a costlier year, a leading expert says. “It'll be interesting to see if merchants can hold fraud rates steady” next year, says Doug Schwegman, director of market and customer intelligence at …
• 9 December

  Processors Jockey for Position in Fast-Growing Digital-Content Market

  While most attention in e-commerce is focused on enabling payments for Web sites run by major chains, airlines, and other hard-goods merchants and sellers of high-end services, some processors have begun to carve out stakes in a corner of online commerce that doesn't get as much notice?digital goods. This week, …
• 9 December

  An AmEx-Delta Cobrand Deal Carries Acquiring, Debit Implications

  An extended cobranded credit card pact between Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Express Co., announced on Tuesday, also has merchant-acquiring and debit card implications, and it provides further evidence of how airlines in a weak economy can raise cash from their issuing and acquiring partners. AmEx, issuer of Atlanta-based …
• 9 December

  With NFC Stalled, Mobile Payments Will Follow Other Paths, Report Says

  While experts once thought contactless payments via a technology called near-field communication (NFC) would drive mobile payments, the sluggish development of NFC now means handset-based payments will grow without the technology, according to a research report released on Tuesday. Indeed, payments by text messages, through the mobile Web, and on …
• 8 December

  Fraudsters Moving on from Stored Data to Thefts of Data in Transit

  Merchants are getting the message that they should not store credit and debit card data, but that's turning into yesterday's issue, according to Chicago-based Trustwave, one of the big card-industry security consultancies. In a report released on Monday, Trustwave says that computer hackers may still be able to steal card …
• 4 December

  How a Security Mandate Could Force Software Vendors out of Payments

  The steady march toward more secure payment-processing software is likely to force many?possibly thousands?of small software vendors out of the market of serving merchants and card processors. These vendors will find it too expensive to upgrade their existing point-of-sale and related applications to meet specifications set forth in the new …