With interest in so-called alternative-payments providers running high among merchants and consumers, Moneta Corp. recently announced a new management team and this week unveiled a strategy for capturing online transaction share from both bank cards and other alternative players. Speaking to Digital Transactions News, Guido Sacchi, the Atlanta-based company's newly …

An electronic bill-presentment and ?payment system that uses the automated clearing house network picked up some momentum recently with the addition of a second participating bank to its pilot program and could gain more as processors serving thousands of banks start linking to the system. Dollar Bank, a Pittsburgh-based thrift, …

An international organization set up to promote the concept of allowing consumers to pay online merchants via Web-based banking programs plans to have a structure in place by the third quarter next year to traffic the first payments across borders. The International Council of Payment Network Operators, established earlier this …

Continuing its conquest of the nation's air carriers, PayPal Inc. reports that it is now accepted on Continental Airlines Inc.'s Web site. Houston-based Continental's acceptance of PayPal leaves the nation's two largest carriers, American and United, as the only big domestic holdouts. Besides newly booked Continental, which claims to be …

NACHA's Secure Vault Payment (SVP) system, which was built to authenticate and process online payments for merchants and billers, may be finding some acceptance among an unlikely constituency: universities and colleges. The University of Georgia will likely begin accepting tuition fees through SVP after the first of the year, followed …

Universal Air Travel Plan's alternative-payments initiative added a fifth processor this week with the announcement that Acculynk Inc. will process PIN debit transactions online for airlines that choose to enable the option through UATP's switch. The news not only further's UATP's 3-year-old effort to add alternatives to credit cards for …

A survey of about 100 mobile and broadband executives indicates the wireless bill is rapidly gaining support as a vehicle for handling payments for digital-content downloads to mobile devices in the U.S. But at the same time the executives expressed doubts about the prospects for payments via near-field communication (NFC) …

The softening economy so far hasn't taken a big bite out of payment processors' earnings, but it is having some effects. Meanwhile, processors continue to streamline their operations, integrate acquisitions, and roll out new services. ? Reflecting the recent weakness in consumer spending, big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. …

This article begins a six-part series by industry analyst Steve Mott that examines the growing economic tensions and structural conflicts that are drawing the acquiring side of the card processing business into a sustained battle with card issuers. Five Digital Transactions News installments assess the divergent impacts of this conflict …

Mobile-payments processor Obopay Inc., which is increasing its fee to send money to 25 cents from 10 cents effective Aug. 7, says it has not had complaints from users despite the more than doubling in the transaction price. “We're pleased we got it right,” says Gregory Holmes, president of Obopay …