News

November, 2007

• 19 November

  Embroiled in Boardroom Fight, Pay By Touch Gets a Temporary Boss

  An outside manager with restructuring experience, Thomas Lumsden of FTI Consulting Inc., is now running financially troubled biometric-payment provider Pay By Touch under terms of a Delaware court order signed Friday, San Francisco-based Pay By Touch announced on Monday. The Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington appointed Lumsden, senior managing director …
• 19 November

  With Plug-In, PayPal Looks for Expanded E-Commerce Reach

  PayPal Inc. on Tuesday will make available to its entire account base a so-called virtual debit card it has been testing with a large number of account holders for nearly 18 months. The new product, which PayPal has dubbed Plug-In, carries a MasterCard Worldwide brand and allows users to buy …
• 16 November

  Saddled with Post-IPO Debt, First Data Shaves Costs with Layoffs

  The ax is falling at First Data Corp. two months after the huge processor's $29 billion leveraged buyout by private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Greenwood Village, Colo.-based First Data announced Thursday that it is cutting 6% of its workforce, or about 1,700 employees. Thanks to recent acquisitions, however, …
• 14 November

  Firethorn Chief Says Qualcomm Deal Will Speed up M-Payments

  Qualcomm Inc.'s $210 million cash deal for Firethorn Holdings Inc., announced on Wednesday, is expected to accelerate Firethorn's movement toward mobile payments and hands Qualcomm a significant stake in the rapidly developing markets for both banking and payments via handsets, according to Tripp Rackley, chief executive of Atlanta-based Firethorn. “All …
• 14 November

  E-Commerce Fraud Rate Holds Steady, But Fraud-Control Costs Go Up

  Online fraud rates are holding steady but the cost of fraud is going up as e-commerce grows and companies hire more people to weed out suspect orders, according to CyberSource Corp.'s 9th annual e-commerce fraud survey. The merchant processor and risk-management firm's recent survey of 318 American and Canadian retailers …
• 13 November

  Consumers And Wall Street Yawn at the Biggest Breach Yet

  Off-price retailer TJX Cos. Inc. might hold the dubious honor of being the merchant where the nation's worst breach of payment card data occurred, but you'd never know it by looking at the company's latest financials. Revenue and profits are up, and executives made only passing reference to the breach …
• 13 November

  AT&T: 10 Million Phones Will Be Preloaded for Banking by End of ’08

  AT&T Inc., which on Tuesday announced it is launching a nationwide mobile-banking service, expects to have 500,000 mobile phones preloaded with the software necessary for the service by the end of the year and 10 million handsets so equipped by the close of 2008, according to a senior executive with …
• 12 November

  Though Still Shaky, a Smaller TRM Gets Closer to Profitability

  Still financially challenged but claiming to be on the mend, TRM Corp., operator of the nation's second-largest non-bank ATM network, reduced its loss in the third quarter as it culled underperforming machines and cut expenses. The Portland, Ore.-based firm on Friday reported a net loss of $4.89 million compared with …
• 10 November

  Its Overhaul Complete, Visa Shoots for the Moon with Its Pending IPO

  Visa Inc. late Friday said it aims to raise $10 billion in its upcoming initial public offering of stock. The figure, while preliminary, is four times the $2.4 billion MasterCard Inc. grossed in its May 2006 IPO, the first chance the market had to value a bank card network. A …
• 8 November

  PCI Council: Software Security Guidelines To Be a Standard

  In a move long expected by software developers, merchant processors, and others, the PCI Security Standards Council this week said it is adding a new standard for point-of-sale software based on Visa Inc.'s set of best practices for card-processing applications. The action is aimed at strengthening the software component of …