Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Having gotten its feet wet with song downloads, PayPal Inc. is marching full-bore into micropayments. The San Jose, Calif.-based payments processor announced today new, cut-rate merchant pricing on transactions under $2 for digital content, which the company defines as video games, online greeting cards, news articles, and mobile-phone content such …
Read More »A Gasoline Retailers’ Group Asks Congress for Interchange Relief
A top official for a trade association representing half of the gas-station operators in Colorado has written to Congress asking for regulation of credit card interchange fees. In a letter dated Aug. 15 and printed in today's online edition of the Rocky Mountain News, Roy A. Turner, executive vice president …
Read More »Top Australian Bank Regulator Defends Interchange Regulation
In testimony today before a committee of the Australian house of representatives, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia stoutly defended the RBA's action last year to regulate credit card interchange rates in that country, claiming it has saved merchants some $447 million (US) in the past year and …
Read More »How Kabira Is Using Beefier Memory to Drive Big Changes in Processing
A little-known maker of switching software with very well-known clients is counting on a major upgrade in memory horsepower it is helping to pioneer to drive down transaction-processing costs while dramatically boosting the amount of data networks can handle. San Rafael, Calif.-based Kabira Technologies Inc. may not have the immediate …
Read More »Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Argue Kendall Won’t Sink Their Interchange Cases
The lead attorney in a recently filed small-business class action against Visa, MasterCard, and a number of their member banks over interchange is optimistic his lawsuit will succeed even though a suit by some California small businesses challenging interchange on antitrust grounds was dismissed this week. In separate statements, Visa …
Read More »PayPal And eBay Tell Sellers They’ll Have to Take Card Payments
Starting Aug. 19, sellers on eBay that accept payment through PayPal Inc.?as virtually all eBay sellers do–will have to accept all forms of funding, including credit card funding, eBay Inc. announced Friday. Currently, eBay sellers have the option of maintaining personal PayPal accounts on eBay, which allow them to refuse …
Read More »Visa Chief, Top Merchant Official Could Meet As Early As September
The new chief executive of Visa U.S.A. could meet with a top official of the National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition as early as September to discuss interchange and other issues, according to a spokesman for both merchant organizations. John Philip Coghlan, the former Charles Schwab & Co. …
Read More »Coghlan’s Olive Branch Not Likely to Bring Retailer-Friendly Change
Despite an apparent willingness by the new chief executive of Visa U.S.A. to meet with merchant representatives on such thorny issues as interchange pricing, some observers say the bank card association's basic position toward the retailer community is unlikely to change. John Philip Coghlan, who took over yesterday as president …
Read More »Star Survey: Consumers Prefer PIN, While PIN Fees Are Less Frequent
Consumers generally prefer PIN-based debit to signature debit, and are less frequently subjected by banks and merchants to fees for PIN-debit usage, according to a recent survey. At the same time, the number of banks offering rewards incentives to consumers for PIN-debit usage, already a small minority, is declining, says …
Read More »Merchants Misunderstand How Interchange Works, Former Visa Exec Says
Merchant complaints about credit card interchange pricing, which culminated last week in a class-action antitrust suit against the bank card associations and major banks, rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the interchange mechanism works, says a former Visa U.S.A. executive and payments-industry expert. The pricing system, indeed, allows for …
Read More »