Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Karen Epper Hoffman A technique that allows consumers to capture card information with PC or mobile-phone cameras could make for faster, more secure transactions. Is anything wrong with this picture? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but is a picture also the …
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In a Good Omen for Mobile Payments, Location-Based Services Attract Handset Users
n A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Washington, D.C., has found that about 20% of U.S. adults uses a smart phone to access a location-based service or a so-called geo-social site, or a social network in which the user “checks in” with his or …
Read More »Intuit Makes a Smart-Phone Payments Go of It With Verizon Wireless
It won’t be long until payment card acceptance applications and card readers for smart phones are as easy to get in stores as cornflakes or socks. The latest example: Intuit Inc. and Verizon Wireless on Thursday announced that Intuit’s GoPayment mobile application and reader are now available in Verizon Wireless’s …
Read More »Opinion & Analysis: What Visa Is up to
n by Steve Mott While most observers have viewed Visa’s recent string of acquisitions as a mere broadening of its conventional card franchise, a long-time analyst of the payments business sees a clever play for dominance of the digital future. Just when the U.S. payments industry appears poised …
Read More »The Rise of the Quasi-Merchant
Purveyors of card-acceptance services for mobile phones are booking merchants by the hundreds of thousands. But many of these merchants present underwriting risks and generate little charge volume. Are they worth it? By Jim Daly Everyman a merchant? Thanks to smart phones and aggressive merchant processors such …
Read More »Google Makes It Official: It’s in the NFC Race—with Payments Plus Deals
Google Inc. on Thursday officially entered what is rapidly becoming a highly competitive sweepstakes for dominance in the nascent business of mobile wallets. The Web search giant announced it is working with four partner companies and some 16 retailers to offer consumers a payments-and-rewards system based on its Nexus S …
Read More »Annual Field Guide to Alternative Payments
Cover Story Mobile-payment schemes proliferate but innovations abound in all corners of the new world of electronic-payment systems competing for consumer and merchant adoption. By John Stewart, Jim Daly, and Linda Punch We’re putting on weight. First published in 2009, Digital Transactions’ Field Guide to …
Read More »Seeding the Vending Market
Acquiring Peter Lucas The low margins earned on vending-machine sales have historically worked against card acceptance. But now, with evidence of a sales lift from cards, processors and gateways are pushing into vending harder than ever. It’s a frequent scenario: A family is out for fun at an amusement park. …
Read More »ProPay Launches a Mobile App That Does What NFC Does, Only at a Little More Distance
ProPay Inc. this week announced a mobile-payments product that lets consumers communicate with as well as pay merchants from a smart phone whether they are in the store or just nearby. The application, which ProPay calls Zumogo, works with a handful of restaurants in the company’s home state of Utah, …
Read More »Going for a Checkmate
Cover Story Going for a Checkmate VeriFone’s buyout of Hypercom will further its dominance of America’s POS terminal industry, which is in the throes of rapid change. Is there life beyond the box? BY JIM DALY It’s not your father’s point-of-sale business any more. It’s not even your older brother’s. …
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