PayPal Holdings Inc. has been talking for more than a year about allowing users of its popular Venmo person-to-person payments app to use the app to pay merchants. On Tuesday, the payments company threw the door wide open for Venmo, announcing it can now be used to pay at as …
Read More »They May Not Like the Terms, But Issuers Will Likely Re-Up for Apple Pay
The first big wave of Apple Pay contracts are expiring this month, and a big question for both Apple Inc. and the financial institutions that committed to support the computing giant’s mobile-payments app is whether to renew, and under what terms, in the face of less-than-spectacular results for mobile payments …
Read More »Merchants Celebrate the Durbin Amendment’s Sixth Birthday as Payments Group Sneers
The Durbin Amendment’s debit card interchange price cap took effect six years ago this month, prompting a merchant group to celebrate the occasion and claim the measure has saved consumers and merchants $48 billion. But a lobbying group of payment networks and banks derided those savings estimates and once again …
Read More »As Out-of-Network ATM Fees Climb to an All-Time High, Cash Gets More Expensive
In the age of electronic payments, cash is getting more and more expensive—even when accessed via electronic means. Nationwide, it costs consumers $4.69 to withdraw money from a so-called out-of-network ATM. That’s up 2.6% from a year ago, according to the latest data from Bankrate Inc., a New York City-based …
Read More »Revolution Payments Launches Interchange-Adjustment Service and other Digital Transactions News briefs
Payments provider Revolution Payments announced an interchange-adjustment service for business-to-business and business-to-government credit cards that automatically attaches details to each transaction that qualify the transactions for level 3 interchange rates, which are less than level 1 and level 2 rates for such transactions. Unattended-payments specialist USA Technologies Inc. announced a partnership with Premier Food Service …
Read More »Why Have Transactions And Dollar Volume Dropped for Same-Day ACH?
So far, most observers would agree same-day ACH credit processing, introduced nearly a year ago on the nation’s automated clearing house network, has been a success. Users appear to be satisfied with the service, and risk appears to be under control, observers say, despite the shorter windows for fraud detection. …
Read More »Vantiv Disputes Researcher’s Report About Its Merchant Pricing
Vantiv Inc. took the unusual step this week of filing a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission to dispute a research firm’s report about its merchant pricing. The payment processor says the report “claims Vantiv deceives merchants by marking up interchange fees.” The report about Vantiv’s allegedly high and …
Read More »Durbin Repeal Effort Could Be Complicated by Nuanced Position of Some Small Banks
In the wake of a failed effort to repeal the Durbin Amendment this spring, many banks, networks, lobbying groups, and other repeal advocates are vowing to try again, as are the Congressmen who pushed the original repeal effort. But that doesn’t mean smaller banks, at least, are totally united behind …
Read More »Visa, Mastercard Reach Surcharging Settlement in Canada
Canadian merchants that accept Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. credit cards soon will be able to add a surcharge to some transactions following a settlement reached this week. The settlement, which stems from a 2011 class-action lawsuit against Visa, Mastercard, and a number of card-issuing banks alleging excessive fees, calls …
Read More »House Republicans Favoring Durbin Repeal Stress Commitment to the Cause
By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews The Republican lawmakers who pushed a bill through the House of Representatives last week to radically reform the Dodd-Frank Act did so after abandoning a provision that would have repealed the Act’s Durbin Amendment. But they made it clear in floor debate on Thursday that they …
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