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Visa USA's decision to enter the contactless payment market represents a major change in strategy at the card association, which up to now had experimented with radio-frequency-based payment overseas but had not seen the U.S. as ripe for the technology. Now, with its announcement last week that it had created …
Read More »TransFirst Sets up New Division to Boost Merchant, ISO Business
Having doubled its merchant base via portfolio acquisitions last year, Dallas-based processor TransFirst has created a product division aimed, it says, at introducing new services to help retain merchants and give independent sales agents more ways to relieve pressure on pricing. The first new products, which will go live in …
Read More »Star Gets Set to Slash Interchange for Small-Ticket Sales
The nation's largest electronic funds transfer network is rejiggering its interchange pricing in an effort to penetrate new merchant categories and convert more low-value transactions?in some cases, below $10?to PIN debit. As part of a sweeping set of pricing changes to go into effect May 1, Star Networks Inc. is …
Read More »MobileLime Looks to Pending Major Deals for National Expansion
Boston-based Vayusa Inc., which markets its m-commerce service under the name MobileLime, has had discussions with a national retailer and restaurant chain about offering its m-commerce network nationally. If successful, the deals could pave the way for MobileLime to reach the 172 million or so mobile users in the U.S. …
Read More »Survey: Add-on Fees Mean No Relief in Acquirer Pricing in 2004
Add-on pricing as well as an increase in manual items kept the fees banks and independent sales organizations pay to processors from dropping in 2004, according to a new acquirer-pricing study released today. Although most observers thought processor fees might decline somewhat last year as a result of the emergence …
Read More »Pulse Says Discover Signature Debit Pricing Will Be ‘Competitive’
Any signature-based debit card product that banks in the Pulse electronic funds transfer network may issue with Discover Financial Services Inc. will most likely offer interchange income equal to what they earn on Visa and MasterCard signature debit, the top executive at Pulse says. “Any [signature-debit] fees will have to …
Read More »PassMark Goes Commercial, Signs up First Customer
A Woodside, Calif.-based startup company today began commercial production of a two-factor authentication system for Internet transactions and also announced its first customer for the product. PassMark Security LLC, which was founded last year, has sold its PassMark identification system to Stanford Federal Credit Union, Palo Alto, Calif. The 18-year-old …
Read More »AmEx: Walgreen’s Changed Its Mind Without Pricing Concessions
American Express Co. made no pricing concessions to Walgreen's Co. to keep the pharmacy giant accepting AmEx cards, a top executive says. Responding to questions from securities analysts during a conference call yesterday to discuss AmEx's fourth-quarter and year-end 2004 results, Gary L. Crittenden, chief financial officer at the New …
Read More »Why Piggly Wiggly Decided to Roll Out Biometric Payments
Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co.'s decision to roll out a biometric payment system to all 85 stores in its chain was driven by both transaction-cost savings and customer interest, a senior executive for the Charleston, S.C.-based grocer says. In related news, Pay By Touch, the San Francisco-based company whose system Piggly …
Read More »CVS Will Roll Out AmEx’s ExpressPay, But AmEx Loses Walgreen’s
It has been an eventful week for American Express Co. Today the company announced that Woonsocket, R.I.-based drugstore chain CVS Corp. has agreed to serve as the first national merchant to accept ExpressPay, an AmEx system that relies on radio waves rather than card swipes to authorize transactions. This news …
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