Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
After months of steady gains, the merchant-services portion of PayPal Inc.'s transaction volume topped the volume coming from eBay Inc auctions for the first time in the third quarter, eBay reported on Wednesday. In line with this result, the online auctioneer also reported PayPal has been adopted by 35 of …
Read More »More Big Merchants Comply, But PCI Likely Still Foreign to Small Fry
New data from Visa Inc. show more of the largest merchants now meet the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI. But the level of validated PCI compliance among small merchants?the overwhelming majority of businesses that accept credit and debit cards?likely remains much lower. Visa's latest figures show 81% of …
Read More »Plenty of Upside for eBay in Bill Me Later Deal, Experts Say
Ebay Inc.'s $945 million acquisition of online payment processor Bill Me Later Inc., announced this week (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 6), places a powerful payment-generating tool in the online auctioneer's hands and simultaneously denies that tool to competitors like Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., experts tell Digital Transactions News. And …
Read More »Visa Looks to Imaging ATMs to Offer Prepaid Card Reloads
Prepaid cards usually get reloaded through direct deposit or when the cardholder takes cash to a merchant, who then swipes the card and receives confirmation that the value has been credited to the card. Now Visa Inc., in an effort to expand its Visa ReadyLink prepaid card reload network, is …
Read More »New Version of PCI Shows More Flexibility, While PABP Takes Hold
After a summer of discussion, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council on Wednesday officially released Version 1.2 of the PCI data-security standard, the sweeping set of rules for protecting Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB cards and transactions. Wednesday also is the first day for a Visa Inc. …
Read More »PDFs Offer Promising New Opportunity for Online Fraudsters
The rising popularity of so-called rich-content files is providing cybercriminals a fertile opportunity to spread malicious software that lets them steal passwords, PINs, and other sensitive information on the Internet, according to a report released on Tuesday. Whereas before viruses, Trojans, and other such malware tended to be found on …
Read More »A Bill Moves Ahead That Would Limit Scope of Online-Gambling Law
Congress is preoccupied with bailing out Wall Street and mortgage-loan holders, but a bill quietly passed the House Financial Services Committee last week that payment-industry interests hope will become law before the 110th Congress adjourns. That's H.R. 6870, “The Payments System Protection Act of 2008,” a measure that would clarify …
Read More »Debit Rivalry Heats up with National City, RBS Shifts to Visa
With National City Corp. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc moving portfolios into its camp, Visa Inc. scored two big debit card wins over MasterCard Inc. this week in the bank card networks' ceaseless struggle to curry issuer and merchant favor. Analysts say the payment industry can expect to …
Read More »An Over-the-Air Test Could Move NFC Closer to Commercial Use
A successfully completed test of specialized mobile technology developed jointly by a U.S.-based maker of contactless-payment readers and software and a German smart card manufacturer could bring closer the commercialization of mobile phones that make point-of-sale payments in the same way contactless cards do. The test, whose results were announced …
Read More »Payments Changes at eBay Go Well Beyond Tossing out Checks
When eBay Inc. announced its all-electronic payments policy last month, the move triggered what an eBay executive calls a “mixed” response, at best, from the online marketplace's sprawling seller community. But the policy changes go beyond banning checks and money orders on eBay. They include requirements that will force third-party …
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