Pricing

Locked in increasingly fierce competition with each other and with other card networks, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide are paying out higher and higher sums to issuers and merchants in the form of rebates and incentives, a trend that not only hurts the bank card networks' yield on each dollar …

In a major vote of confidence for an 11-month-old form of electronic payment, Hy-Vee Inc., a 224-unit supermarket chain based in West Des Moines, Iowa, has installed back-office conversion (BOC) in 21 of its stores in the Des Moines area since last August and plans to roll out the system …

An absence of incentives?particularly for merchants?is handicapping contactless payments in the U.S., and by extension mobile payment at the point of sale could suffer, according to a new report. About 40,000 U.S. merchants now accept contactless cards and fobs, or 0.5% of all merchant locations. That number will grow to …

Banks and processors looking for a way in to the potentially lucrative market for health-care payments could do worse than to cultivate that market for remote deposit capture, says an expert in electronic check processing. But while hospitals and clinics represent a wide-open opportunity for banks, it's not one that …

The trend toward acceptance of so-called alternative-payment products by online merchants is going strong and will likely continue for some time, driven largely by incentives for merchants and consumers alike and by ease of use, says Adam Cohen, principal at Brulant Inc., an interactive advertising agency in Cleveland. “I would …

Many consumers seem willing to use their cell phones or other mobile devices for in-store payments, but the majority wants to have only one credit or debit card account enabled for wireless payments, according to new findings from New York City-based technology research firm ABI Research. The preference for just …

Introduced only last March, the back-office conversion (BOC) e-check application is poised for a big year in 2008, according to a check-services vendor that is processing more than one-third of all BOC volume. “We think there's going to be big growth for BOC in 2008, and we're going to be …

A European Commission ruling that MasterCard Worldwide's interchange-fee structure is illegal in that region will affect relatively few transactions in Europe but could encourage regulators?including those in the U.S.?to act on interchange, among other bleak implications for bank and network executives. “On balance, the EC decision is negative,” says Eric …

Evidence that the battle for supremacy among alternative-payments providers remains intense arrived on Wednesday with Google Inc.'s announcement that its Checkout service will continue to process transactions for free through January. “Considering how busy this time of year is for you,” says Checkout product marketing manager Gavin Chan in a …

At the stroke of a pen, Bill Me Later Inc. has not only become the sole third-party alternative payment vehicle accepted by the world's largest retailing Web site, but it also receives an injection of capital as that site, Amazon.com Inc., takes an undisclosed equity stake in the Timonium, Md.-based …