Merchants face relentless and ever-changing attempts to make fraudulent online transactions, but measuring the effectiveness of rules in place to counter those attempts takes time. Now, CyberSource, a unit of Visa Inc., is offering a service called Decision Manager Replay that lets merchants test various anti-fraud measures for online transactions …
Read More »Optimal Buys Skrill for $1.2 Billion, Eyes Gaming Opportunities
Online-payments provider Skrill Group has a new owner. United Kingdom-based Optimal Payments Plc is buying London-based Skrill for 1.1 billion euros (U.S. $1.2 billion), Optimal announced Monday. Both companies provide digital-wallet services, with Skrill specializing in wallets for online-gambling users, e-commerce and money transfers. Skrill also offers a payment gateway and …
Read More »Square Unveils Debit-Based Square Cash for Businesses, and ‘$Cashtags’
By Jim Daly Square Inc. on Monday introduced a business-oriented version of its Square Cash person-to-person payments service aimed at displacing checks. The merchant processor also unveiled so-called “$Cashtags,” which Square touts as a simple and fast way for people to get paid through Square Cash. Dubbed Cash Pro for …
Read More »Plenti Offers Cross-Merchant Rewards—But Will Consumers Use It?
When the Plenti loyalty program—announced Wednesday by American Express Co.—debuts this spring, it will mark the first time a U.S. consumer-rewards program on a national scale enabled points to be earned and used across multiple merchants. The inaugural group of merchants includes AT&T, ExxonMobil Corp., Macy’s Inc., Nationwide Mutual Insurance …
Read More »Target To Pay $10 Million To Settle Data-Breach Consumer Class Action
By Jim Daly Lawyers for Target Corp. and consumers affected by the big discount retailer’s 2013 data breach were scheduled to meet in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn., today to review a proposed settlement under which Target will pay up to $10 million to customers who suffered financial …
Read More »With 92% Backing, NACHA’s Same-Day Proposal Will Go to Ballot Within Weeks
A proposal to speed up processing on the automated clearing house network from next-day to same-day settlement will go to a ballot among NACHA voting members as early as next month, according to information posted this week on NACHA’s Web site. NACHA took comments on the proposal from early in …
Read More »The clearXcxhange P2P Payment Service Adds U.S. Bank As An Owner And User
Person-to-person payment company clearXchange has a fifth owner. U.S. Bank, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, said on Tuesday it had invested in the network and plans to offer clearXchange services. Terms were not disclosed. ClearXchange was founded by Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., and JPMorgan Chase & …
Read More »Pot Payments Piteously Poor in an Otherwise Smokin’ Industry
By Jim Daly Legal U.S. marijuana sales grew 74% to $2.7 billion in 2014 from $1.5 billion the year before, but you wouldn’t know it by the payment card and other electronic payments generated by the budding industry, according to a new research report. Even though about 20 states have …
Read More »With Small Merchants Lagging, Visa Embarks on EMV Education Tour to Hit Basics
As the U.S. payment card industry migrates to EMV chip cards, there’s one group to which the payments industry needs to pay special attention. Smaller merchants have little awareness of what EMV is and how their businesses will be affected by it. That’s why Visa Inc. set out Friday on …
Read More »Intuit Extends POS, E-Commerce Reach for QBO With Shopify, Bigcommerce Deals
Intuit Inc., which markets the highly popular QuickBooks accounting product for small businesses, continues to reinforce the online version of the software with point-of-sale and e-commerce capabilities. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company on Thursday announced an integration for QuickBooks Online (QBO) with Shopify Inc., an Ottawa-based platform for e-commerce and …
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