Transaction Processing

Checks cleared by paying banks as electronic images outnumbered substitute checks for the first time in the short history of image exchange in October, according to numbers compiled by the Electronic Check Clearing House Organization, Dallas. The ECCHO statistics, gathered from three primary settlement networks, also show healthy growth in …

Intuit Inc. has notched yet another acquisition calculated to augment its widely used accounting software with electronic-payments capability by agreeing to pay $142 million in cash to buy Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO), a publicly held, Camarillo, Calif.-based processor of card and automated clearing house transactions. The deal, which is …

A new tactic used by Internet fraudsters is causing a dramatic upsurge in the number of Web sites hosting phishing attacks. The number of fake sites phishing fraudsters use to con Internet users into giving up PINs, passwords, and other confidential information soared to 37,444 in October, up nearly nine-fold …

Big banks get most of the attention when the topic turns to check imaging at ATMs. Now credit unions are about to get into the act. Ontario, Calif.-based Co-Op Financial Services, formerly known as the Co-Op Network, plans to make check imaging available to its nearly 2,000 credit-union members in …

Payment processor eFunds Corp. will take over the processing of American Express Co.'s fast-growing retail and gift card portfolio in 2007 and 2008 under a deal announced Wednesday. The deal, financial terms of which were not released, is the biggest prepaid contract to date for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based eFunds, which focuses …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is working on a technology platform that would support multiple accounting and transaction functions on a single card, the processor's chairman and chief executive revealed in a presentation last week. Speaking to an audience of merchants, processors, and bankers interested in converting small-value cash payments to …

A small technology company that has made a name for itself with its aggressive and successful litigation defending a pair of patents covering check imaging was dealt a setback late last week when the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected all of the claims set out in those patents. …

Software maker Intuit Inc.'s pending acquisition of online-banking services provider Digital Insight Corp. is mostly a story about Intuit expanding its services and finding new markets for its popular QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Quicken financial-software programs. But, according to one analyst, remote deposit capture?and a processor that offers the service?could get …

While American consumers were flocking to the stores on Friday and whipping out their credit and debit cards for payment, their Canadian counterparts were forced to find cash, their checkbooks, or to come back later because the network of the nation's largest merchant acquirer went down for two and a …

E-commerce sites held up well under an onslaught of shoppers on what has become known as Cyber Monday, widely considered one of the heaviest traffic days of the year for Internet retailers, says Keynote Systems Inc. Keynote, which measures Web site performance, said Monday the more than 30 sites it …