With the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21) taking effect today, Metavante Corp. hopes to use its latest acquisition in the payments business to help it leverage sales to banks for distributed check capture and move the two national check image exchanges that have gone live so …

MasterCard International announced today it will launch pilots of its PayPass electronic payment system on mobile phones from Motorola Inc. The Purchase, N.Y.-based card company says the pilots will get under way at a “variety” of unspecified locations in the U.S by the end of the year. The Motorola phones …

A veteran ATM network executive thinks he can succeed at building a national health-care transaction-processing system, though similar efforts have a dismal record of failure. The executive, Joseph E. Wolfson, founder of the Metroteller electronic funds transfer network, expects the HealthTransaction Network to begin processing transactions from health-care insurance companies …

The number of Americans ages 12 and up who bought sub-$2 digital content online in the past year has ballooned to more than 14 million, up from 4 million a year ago, according to a survey released today. “The data suggest that the online micropayments market has grown significantly in …

MasterCard International expects to bring thousands of new Internet merchants into its SecureCode transaction security program by the middle of next month. The new merchant signings will result from a major push the card network is making for SecureCode among large, well-know online retailers as well as among Web hosting …

Canada's five major banks next spring will roll out a service that will allow consumers to pay for goods and services on the Internet with debit cards linked to personal identification numbers. The service, called iDebit, has been at least 18 months in the making and is expected to be …

Despite widespread industry perceptions that 3D Secure technologies are rendering proxy payment numbers obsolete, the primary vendor of such single-use-number technology says its system remains highly attractive to card issuers looking for ways to encourage customers to spend on the Internet. “I feel very bullish about our product,” says Diane …

PayPal isn't likely to be the last new payment channel Retail Decisions USA Inc. adds to its transaction products for online merchants. The Hazlet, New Jersey-based unit of Retail Decisions PLC in the U.K. announced earlier this month it was adding PayPal acceptance to its transaction-processing software, LiveProcessor, and its …

As he prepares to take the reins from Dennis F. Lynch as president of the NYCE electronic funds network, Steven A. Rathgaber says the Montvale, N.J.-based network's acquisition by Milwaukee-based Metavante Corp. will help it weather what is probably the fiercest competition the online debit business has ever faced. “Dennis …

Competition in the nascent market for micropayments, or transactions of $5 or less, is about to become even more heated. A 10-year-old maker of e-commerce systems for retailers says it is 30 to 45 days away from introducing a micropayments product that will be tied to prepaid consumer accounts and …