Transaction Processing

  Consumer affinity for shopping on smart phones and tablets is unlikely to abate any time soon. And that poses a problem for retailers as they try to make the payment experience easier on mobile commerce sites and apps. It’s a problem that credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. and payments-and-authentication-services provider …

Some 43% of businesses report they were exposed to card fraud in 2013, a whopping rise of 14 percentage points from 2012, according to the latest annual fraud survey from the Association of Financial Professionals. Nonetheless, survey respondents are remarkably optimistic about the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card standard, with 92% …

After a string of news from Visa Inc. about partnerships with electronic funds transfer networks to facilitate debit transactions with chip cards, MasterCard Inc. got back in the game Thursday with the announcement that First Data Corp.’s Star network will use MasterCard’s so-called common application identifier (AID). n Visa has …

Payments industry professionals attending one of the four regional acquiring conferences can expect to see more from the Electronic Transactions Association at the events. n “This is a conscious effort on the part of the ETA to participate, support them, and engage in mutually beneficial activities,” Oxman tells Digital Transactions …

Merchants that think payment services should leverage software, be simple to integrate, carry low or no fees, and include digital-currency choices have a champion in PayStand, a startup that emerged Tuesday from private beta with $1 million in funding and a promise of no transaction fees for online sellers. The …

Two banks that sued Target Corp. and data-security services provider Trustwave Holdings Inc. in the wake of Target’s massive data breach have withdrawn their federal lawsuit after filing it only a week ago, leaving payments-industry observers wondering why they brought the action in the first place. In separate motions filed …

  Debit network NYCE says it will use Visa Inc.’s common application identifier technology on chip debit cards, marking yet another regional debit network’s acceptance of a critical component to enabling Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card acceptance in the United States. This is NYCE’s first formal EMV license, says Fidelity National Information …

In an unsurprising ruling, a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld the Federal Reserve Board’s controversial rule implementing the Durbin Amendment’s debit card provisions in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. A federal district judge last July overturned the rule, saying the Fed hadn’t followed Congress’s intent. Judges …

A fresh proposal to introduce a same-day settlement capability for the automated clearing house network is encountering cautious optimism mixed with a healthy dose of skepticism among expert observers. But NACHA officials clearly see the new proposal not only as a blueprint for speedier payments but also as a first …

Despite Bitcoin’s recent travails, the fledgling digital currency has begun to win support from some of the nation’s best-known merchants. This week came news that department-store chain Lord & Taylor will start accepting Bitcoin through a mobile app called Pounce. The news followed upbeat Bitcoin results released by online retailing …