Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
A longstanding truism in the acquiring business is that smaller merchants tend to generate more profit than their larger counterparts. But now research has emerged to show that smaller online merchants are even more profitable for acquirers and processors than brick-and-mortar stores of the same size. In fact, across all …
Read More »How Banks’ PR Fiascoes Compromise Their Ability to Recoup Revenue Lost to Durbin
The banks’ defeat on the Durbin Amendment—followed by their hamhanded efforts to recover lost revenue with explicit debit card fees—may have done more than tarnish their image with consumers. It may also have damaged their ability to deploy revenue-generating programs linked to debit cards, according to Beth Robertson, director of …
Read More »With No Credit Card Cushion, TCF Sees Debit Card Revenue Drop 51%
Yet another big debit card issuer, TCF Financial Corp., weighed in with results from the first full quarter of Durbin Amendment debit card interchange price controls, and they weren’t pretty. The Wayzata, Minn.-based regional bank said on Tuesday that card revenue fell 51% to $13.6 million in the fourth quarter …
Read More »The Durbin Amendment’s Early Toll on Big Banks: $1.1 Billion And Counting
Ouch. The Durbin Amendment, which slapped debit card interchange price controls on big banks beginning Oct.1, cost some of the nation’s largest financial institutions more than $1.1 billion in reduced fourth-quarter revenue. Digital Transactions News calculated that figure based on what seven national or large regional banks disclosed over …
Read More »Protests Force Verizon Wireless To Drop Its Planned $2 Payment Fee
n Bowing to an outcry of opposition, telecommunications giant Verizon Wireless cancelled a controversial $2 fee for one-time telephone and online payments just one day after announcing it. The carrier’s reversal came less than two months after Bank of America Corp. cancelled its enormously unpopular plan to charge some customers …
Read More »Free-Equipment Pioneer United Bank Card Hints at Enhancements to Come
Despite criticism that free point-of-sale terminals for card-accepting merchants undercut independent sales organizations’ profitability, the company that started the trend back in 2004 remains staunchly committed to the strategy. The investment in hardware is more than returned in reduced attrition, says Jared Isaacman, chief executive of United Bank Card Inc. …
Read More »Intuit Launches a Feature That Lets QuickBooks Online Users Accept Visa, MasterCard
Bowing to feedback from small-business users, Intuit Inc. this week added the capability of accepting credit and signature debit cards to its QuickBooks Online product. The new capability allows users to accept Visa and MasterCard cards in addition to the existing ability to accept bank-account transfers through the automated clearing …
Read More »No Effect on Consumer Prices, Says Anti-Durbin Group’s Survey
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Read More »Vending Machine Network Gives MasterCard Debit Cards the Boot
In a marked escalation of a conflict that began when MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. raised small-ticket debit card interchange rates, USA Technologies Inc. has stopped accepting MasterCard debit cards in its wireless network of 100,000-plus vending machines and other unattended card-accepting locations. The Malvern, Pa.-based operator turned off MasterCard …
Read More »Merchants File Suit Accusing the Fed of Departing from the Law with Its Durbin Regs
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