Direct charges to subscribers' bills and credit and debit cards will account for the bulk of mobile payments in five years, with today's preferred method, short-message-service (SMS) payments, dropping to a minority of transactions, a survey released this week indicates. Only 6% of respondents to the survey, attendees at a …

The simmering battle over card interchange, which up to now has been fought mostly in the courts, found a new battlefield in the U.S. Senate Wednesday as opponents and supporters of the controversial fee testified before that body's Judiciary Committee. The occasion was a hearing dubbed, “Credit Card Interchange Rates: …

In marketing coup for Discover Financial Services LLC, Dollar Tree Stores Inc. has agreed to accept cards issued on Discover's network exclusively in about 2,100 of its 3,100 stores across the country. The deal, which takes effect immediately, means the Cheseapeake, Va.-based chain, which is part of a fast-growing retail …

Peppercoin Inc., which started out as a processor of so-called micropayments for online content but soon began to embrace small-value point-of-sale transactions, now sees opportunity in both contactless technology and vending markets, its top executive says. “We've set bigger sights for ourselves,” says Mark Friedman, chief executive of the Waltham, …

Ebay Inc.'s decision to bar Google Inc.'s new payment product from its massive online auction site doesn't seem to faze the online search company. Indeed, the executive in charge of Google Checkout, which debuted less than two weeks ago (Digital Transactions News, June 29), tells Digital Transactions News Google has …

Ottawa police are close to bringing charges against a retail clerk who police say has helped a local criminal ring siphon an estimated $2 million (Canadian) over the past three months from hundreds of bank accounts by using rigged point-of-sale terminals to steal debit card account numbers and PINs, according …

Privaris Inc. expects to begin pilots for a biometrically secured contactless-payment fob in both physical point-of-sale and Internet payment applications by year's end, an executive with the Charlottesville, Va.-based company says. While the device, which Privaris announced last week as the first contactless key fob secured by fingerprint ID, has …

Following a year of on-again, off-again speculation about its plans in online payments, Google Inc. launched a transaction service Thursday with at least 92 online merchants of various sizes already signed on, from Ace Hardware, Ritz Camera, and Buy.com to Trendy Togs and FaucetDirect. The new service, called Google Checkout, …

Canadian police arrested 10 people Tuesday they say used rigged card terminals to intercept PINs as cardholders entered them at the point of sale as part of a scheme in which they stole $4 million (Canadian) from 18,000 customer bank accounts. More arrests are expected, according to the authorities. In …

With online search giant Google Inc. reportedly a week away from launching its long-expected payment service, observers differ on the question of whether the service will allow merchants to accept electronic payments on their own sites or be limited to Google's own platforms, especially the rapidly growing Google Base online …