Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• The National Retail Federation on Friday launched a multimedia advertising campaign urging the House of Representatives to protect the Durbin Amendment. The campaign, which includes radio commercials targeting the districts of key Congressmen who have expressed support for repealing Durbin, comes as the House prepares to take up the Financial Choice Act the week of May 22. The act would reform the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and includes a provision that would scrap the Durbin Amendment, which caps debit card interchange for large issuers and requires all issuers to offer at least two unaffiliated networks on all debit cards. The NRF has long been a vocal supporter of the amendment.
• VeriFone Systems Inc. announced that it and Eigen Development Ltd., a point-to-point encryption provider, are providing The Keg Steakhouse + Bar with a secure pay-at-the-table service that uses VeriFone’s VX 690 point-of-sale terminals and other technology. The restaurant chain has 102 locations, and has been using pay-at-the-table with chip-and-PIN in Canada since 2009, a Keg Steakhouse + Bar spokesman says.
• As financial-services firms increasingly deploy chatbots for customer service, a new survey finds that 56% of consumers would prefer to deal with a human being, even if it means waiting for a short time. But if a chatbot is seen as equally accurate with a human, 55% say they’d prefer to deal with the bot. LivePerson commissioned the April survey, which incorporated responses from 5,002 consumers in six countries, including the United States.
• Mobile-payments provider Fortumo launched Hosted Direct Carrier Billing, a service that allows digital-content merchants to use advanced features of carrier billing, including dynamic pricing and recurring payments.
• Payment processor MiCamp Solutions has teamed with CapX Payments, a provider of payments solutions, to offer WAVit, a cash-discount program aimed at cutting card-acceptance costs for merchants.
• The British Columbia Automobile Association, a major travel-insurance provider in Canada, has adopted the FICO Enterprise Security Score from Fair Isaac Corp. The score will measure the likelihood of a major breach within the next 12 months for both the association and its business partners.
