Transaction Processing

Check scams come in many forms. It could start with someone offering to buy something you advertised in the newspaper, on Craigslist, or eBay. Or someone could offer to pay you to do work at home, give you an “advance” on a sweepstake you’ve supposedly won, or pay the first …

Online-commerce analytics firm eMarketer Inc. is out with its 2018 holiday spending forecast, and it has some encouraging news for merchant acquirers, especially those in the e-commerce and mobile-commerce space. New York City-based eMarketer’s “Holiday Shopping 2018: A Strong Economy Sets the Stage for a Spending Surge” report predicts total …

Merchants using CardFlight Inc.’s mobile point-of-sale app can now use a service called SwipeSimple Customers to help manage their customer data, card-on-file data, and payments, CardFlight announced Tuesday. Among the new features are the ability to create and maintain a customer database with an option to store payment card details …

Merchant processor Elavon rolled out its self-test platform for providers of payment hardware and software developers to streamline needed certification processes from the card networks and for EMV chip card acceptance; Elavon says the platform can reduce previous four-week certification times to 24 to 48 hours and eliminate the need …

In the 2002 Oscar-nominated movie “Catch Me if You Can,” the audience meets one of the greatest con artists of the 1960s, Frank Abagnale (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). In addition to faking his identity and several professions (e.g., airline pilot, surgeon), Abagnale cashed over $2.5 million worth of forged checks …

Small merchants are generating more payment volume, and health-care providers handily outlive restaurants and bars in their relationships with merchant acquirers, according to a new analysis from The Strawhecker Group. Data from the Omaha, Neb.-based consulting and research firm’s Acquiring Industry Metrics service shows that the average small and mid-size …

Terminal maker Verifone Systems Inc. launched EX-Receipt, a cloud-based system that generates an electronic receipt at gas pumps via text or email for enrolled customers, replacing the customary paper receipt. NCR Corp. introduced mobile-payment and -loyalty capability for Enmarket Convenience Stores, a chain of 123 c-stores and 14 quick-service restaurants …

Last week payment processor Square Inc. announced its Square Installments service which provides loans of up to $10,000 to customers of its merchant clients. Like all similar services, it splits a consumer’s repayment of large purchases into fixed monthly amounts. Installment solutions are not unique in payments, far from it. But …

The co-defendant in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s insider-trading lawsuit against former Heartland Payment Systems Inc. chief executive Robert O. Carr will pay $528,608 to the SEC under a settlement approved Thursday by a federal judge. Katherine M. Hanratty, described as Carr’s long-time girlfriend, neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s …

Fresh data indicates that most debit card transactions on mobile wallets—77%—are on Apple Pay. Coming from New York City-based Auriemma Consulting Group, which canvassed debit card issuers, the data also found that Samsung Pay and Google Pay accounted for 17% and 6% of transactions. Auriemma suggests one reason for the …