Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
It wasn’t just another Monday for processor First Data Corp. The company started its new life as a private company by completing its widely watched, $29 billion leveraged buyout, and it installed a new management team under new chairman and chief executive Michael D. Capellas. Edward Labry, the head of …
Read More »TJX Settlement Leaves the Bigger Card-Security Issues Unsettled
Off-price retailer TJX Cos. Inc. late Friday announced it had settled the consumer class-action lawsuits it faced in the wake of a security breach that compromised nearly 46 million payment card records in its computers, but big-picture issues facing card networks, processors, and merchants about the best ways to enhance …
Read More »Survey: 42% of Consumers Ditch Online Transactions After a Glitch
Evidence emerged again this week that Web-site breakdowns are causing more broken transactions online than e-commerce managers might suspect. Indeed, the proportion of consumers who report having had a problem completing an online transaction has remained little changed over the past three years at around 90%, while the fraction that …
Read More »First Data Cuts Data Centers As Its Road Show Starts
First Data Corp. is giving more glimpses of its previously announced plans to tighten up operations as top management and private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. struggle to meet a planned Sept. 30 closing date for KKR's $29 billion leveraged buyout of the No. 1 payments processor. In a …
Read More »New Biller Categories, More Vendors Spur PINless Debit Growth
Transactions consumers make online with PIN-debit cards?but without entering their PINs?will soar 40% this year, to an estimated 92 million payments, driven by rising biller adoption, an expansion of eligible biller categories, and increasing availability of the payment option among vendors that handle payments for billers, according to a new …
Read More »Sued by FTC, MPI Begins Turnaround, Looks to Expand to Midwest
The new chief executive of Merchant Processing Inc. says his independent sales organization is on the road to recovery five months after the Federal Trade Commission accused the ISO and its then president of defrauding merchants and had MPI placed in receivership. James Keller, a certified public accountant with experience …
Read More »How Cardtronics Could Make Use of $300 Million from Its IPO
The payment industry's Wall Street parade continued Monday when non-bank ATM network owner Cardtronics Inc. announced plans for an initial public offering of common stock. The Houston-based operator of 31,000 machines hopes to raise potentially $300 million, before underwriting fees and payments to current owners, to pay down debt and …
Read More »Why POS Merchants Don’t Buy in to Payment Security
Data Insecurity Part 4 Securing transactions at the point of sale seems like child's play compared to the Internet, and since the payments volume is 20 to 25 times the size of online transacting, a natural venue for improved data security. But the rash of data breaches (covered in Part …
Read More »Google: Don’t Read Too Much into Our M-Payment Patent Application
Despite the frenzy of media speculation it unleashed over the Labor Day holiday weekend, Google Inc.'s application for a patent covering mobile payments draws little comment from the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant beyond a cautionary note that the mobile service may not progress beyond the drawing board. “We file …
Read More »Phishing Attacks Nearly Hit an All-Time High in June, Report Says
Phishing fraudsters were exceptionally busy in June, with a near-record number of unique online attacks hitting consumers' PCs during the month, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, which tracks the fraud. The group recorded 28,888 unique phishing reports, up 23% from May and just shy of …
Read More »