Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Mobile POS devices may not displace entirely the traditional countertop POS terminal, but they could come close. It emerged six years ago among the smallest of merchants and had only one function: accepting credit and debit card transactions. But now the mobile point-of-sale device and its attendant software have …
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Falling Short on EMV
Every U.S. EMV chip card will have a backup magnetic stripe. That ensures widespread acceptance but can present risks. As EMV chip card payments finally take hold in the United States, an issue certain to show up on the payment industry’s radar is fallback. That’s when the customer inserts an …
Read More »What’s First Data Worth?
Possibly as soon as later this year, the processing giant will undergo a mammoth IPO. Here, a payments-industry analyst sizes up what the company can offer investors. The world’s largest payment processor, First Data Corp., is girding for an initial public offering, likely later this year. It promises to be …
Read More »Spurred by Heavier Marketing, Gift Card Loads Grew 9% in 2014, New Report Says
With a little more marketing oomph behind it, the gift card market rebounded in 2014 after a down year in 2013, according to a report released Wednesday by Mercator Advisory Group. Virtual gift cards, a small but key segment of the market, held their own and may soon benefit from …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Why I Have Only One Apple Pay Credential Loaded for Apple Watch
There’s something off about the Apple Watch, especially when it comes to Apple Pay. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up. Let me explain. When I got the watch the other day, the feature I first wanted to activate was Apple Pay, the contactless payment service Apple Inc. …
Read More »MasterCard, Google, Other Corporates Join Payments-Startup Investment Frenzy
By John Stewart While payments startups are enjoying a record flood of investment capital, venture-capital and private-equity firms aren’t the only investors spotting opportunity in these companies. Directly or through their venture arms, established companies like MasterCard Inc. and Google Inc. are pouring cash into startups as well, either to …
Read More »How Its PocketMath Deal Bolsters XpressBuy’s Push for Multiplatform Buy Buttons
While social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest develop so-called buy buttons for the ads they sell, third-party developers are looking at extending the same technology across not only social networks but apps, mobile sites, and even emails. One of the most aggressive of these developers, Santa Clara, Calif.-based XpressBuy …
Read More »Vantiv Wins the U.S. Postal Service’s Merchant-Processing Business
Merchant processor Vantiv Inc. has won one of the biggest retail merchant-processing contracts out there—the U.S. Postal Service’s credit and debit card business, including its USPS.com online component. Counting post offices, branches and substations, the Postal Service has more than 35,000 retail outlets in all 50 states, U.S. territories and …
Read More »With Certification in Hand, Pivotal Aims FlexPoint Encryption Service at ISVs, VARs
Independent sales organization Pivotal Payments Inc. says its FlexPoint point-to-point encryption service for point-of-sale software systems has been certified by its processor, Total System Services Inc. (TSYS). FlexPoint, which launched in 2014 in Canada, encrypts payment data directly on the payment device and sends the encrypted data directly to the …
Read More »How ClearXchange’s New Real-Time Payments Service Goes Beyond the P2P Market
The clearXchange payments service owned by five of the nation’s six largest banks on Monday announced a real-time payments service that includes not only its original person-to-person payments franchise but also business-to-consumer payments. Mike Kennedy, chief executive of San Francisco-based clearXchange, tells Digital Transactions News that the system is live …
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