Reversing a marketing decision it made two years ago, Visa USA has attached a brand name to its contactless-payment platform. The name, payWave, will identify Visa's contactless technology around the world, serving the same function as MasterCard Worldwide's PayPass and American Express Co.'s ExpressPay contactless brands. Although the bank card …

Chockstone Inc., a provider of customer loyalty marketing programs and stored-value solutions acquired Peppercoin Inc. for its card-processing and transaction-aggregation expertise, Chockstone’s top executive tells Digital Transactions News. The acquisition of Peppercoin, which will be merged into Chockstone, will allow the loyalty-marketing company to expand its offerings, says Jeff Lipp, …

Electronic transactions using unique numerical identifiers to mask account and routing data are rising fast, and now the company behind the technology expects it will be commercially available for consumer payments in about a year. The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC says corporate users made 80,459 transactions in 2006 using …

A survey released this week by a major trade association for corporate treasury officials raises an alarm about fraud in check and electronic payments and points to vulnerabilities in newer transaction channels, such as the Internet. “Payments fraud last year was pervasive and increasing,” says a report from the Association …

A well-financed startup company staffed by experienced card and marketing executives plans to launch in April an all-in-one, PIN-protected credit-debit-prepaid card with an acceptance cost that may resonate favorably these days with interchange-weary merchants: 0.50% of the sale. “One of our core tenets is to eliminate interchange altogether,” said Jason …

Pay By Touch Inc., the San Francisco company best known for its biometric authentication system for point-of-sale transactions, this week saw its merchant-processing unit take a step calculated to extend its reach into new merchant markets and attract more independent sales organizations to resell its services. Under this week's agreement, …

More than 3 million PayPal users have been invited to try the online processor's virtual debit card since it was introduced in July, a PayPal executive responsible for the product tells Digital Transactions News. That represents almost 10% of PayPal's total active account base. The card, which links to users' …

Seeking to take some of the complexity out of medical payments and at the same time increase transaction volume, American Express Co. and processor Metavante Corp. have teamed up with insurance giant Cigna Corp. for a planned 2007 rollout of a system they claim will let patients know how much …

A mobile payments and banking service backed by Cingular Wireless and CheckFree Corp., announced this week, could pave the way to faster and more widespread adoption of contactless payments, its backers say. The service, which is being tested by an unnamed regional bank and is expected to launch in the …

MasterCard Worldwide and point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc. on Wednesday announced that the 1,600 taxicabs in Philadelphia now accept or will accept MasterCard's PayPass contactless card by year's end. The cabs will use technology from VeriFone Transportation Systems, a joint venture of VeriFone and Queens, N.Y.-based taxi-equipment manufacturer TaxiTronic …