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The merchant cash-advance and non-bank small-business loan sectors have boomed in recent years, with startups, established providers, and PayPal Inc. all seeking to tap merchant demand for capital that banks haven’t met. Now comes merchant processor Square Inc. with a new merchant cash-advance (MCA) service called Square Capital. As it …
Read More »Priority Payment Merges with Cynergy Data As ISO/Processor Consolidation Presses on
The merchant-acquiring business continued its consolidation trend on Wednesday with the news that Priority Payment Systems LLC has merged with Cynergy Data LLC. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, has created an independent sales organization processing some $20 billion annually for 125,000 merchant clients. Comvest Partners, a West Palm …
Read More »Dwolla Adds Next-Day Transfers, Harnessing the ACH System
Dwolla Inc. is in the next-day transfer business now. The alternative-payment network announced Thursday it is offering the service for withdrawals from Dwolla accounts to its users’ bank accounts. Relying on the automated clearing house system, the transfer service is an opportunity to use an existing network while Dwolla continues …
Read More »Entertainment Providers Among the Top Targets for Online Fraudsters, Report Finds
Entertainment companies providing cable, satellite, and pay-television services experience the highest rates of global fraud, says 2Checkout Inc., an e-commerce payment-services company, in its inaugural Fraud Index report. The index is based on transaction data made via more than 600 million devices that connect to 2Checkout’s payment service. Columbus, …
Read More »EMV Commercial Card Issuers May Herald PIN Dominance With Consumers
It’s still very early in the U.S. smart card game, but so far chip-and-PIN authentication dominates among commercial card issuers, according to new research by First Annapolis Consulting Inc. The findings could signal that chip-and-PIN will beat out chip-and-signature authentication as the United States prepares for broader smart card issuance …
Read More »For Added POS Security, Wal-Mart Asks Some Cardholders To Enter a Verification Code
In an unusual tactic to thwart credit card fraud, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. nearly a year ago quietly implemented a policy in which its point-of-sale terminals prompt some cardholders to enter their card’s verification number, a code normally used for card-not-present transactions such as mail-order/telephone order (MOTO) and Internet purchases. The …
Read More »Sberbank, Biggest Bank So Far to Adopt Host Card Emulation, Aims for 3 Million Users
The mobile-payments variant known as host card emulation captured its biggest financial-institution backer yet with a deal between Russia’s Sberbank and Sequent Software Inc. Sberbank will launch a commercial service “later this year” using HCE software from Mountain View, Calif.-based Sequent, an official with the bank tells Digital Transactions News. …
Read More »Gnome Tablet POS System Relies on BLE to Ease Groupon Redemption In Stores
Yet another tablet-based point-of-sale system has joined the fray, this one from daily-deal provider Groupon Inc. Dubbed Gnome, the iPad-based system not only accepts credit and debit cards, but is the centerpiece of a Bluetooth low energy-enabled setup to enable Groupon offers redemption without requiring the consumer to present a …
Read More »Most Contend Only a Minority of Merchants Will Be Ready for EMV, Finds a DTN Survey
In 17 months, a crucial step in the migration of the U.S. payment card industry from the venerable magnetic stripe to smart cards with embedded chips will be under way. But there is little hope that a majority of merchants will be ready to accept the new cards, finds a …
Read More »Fiserv Prepares Suite of EMV Services to Help Issuers With Looming Migration
As the U.S. payments system continues its migration to the Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip-card standard, companies like processor Fiserv Inc. are preparing services to help issuers with the effort. Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv announced this week it is offering a suite of services to help with issuer strategies, personalization, transaction processing, risk management, …
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