The week ended Dec. 18 included three of the four heaviest spending days of the holiday shopping season so far, according to the latest report from Visa USA. Spending on Visa-branded cards totaled $5.2 billion on Dec. 16, ranking that day the busiest of the season. Black Friday, the day …

A technology that allows consumers to use their debit cards and PINs to buy items on the Internet will likely undergo tests with at least one electronic funds transfer network starting the first half of 2006. A full commercial rollout involving at least one major merchant should be in progress …

An Atlanta test of mobile-phone payments, mobile downloads, and other applications, announced today, is the first major U.S. test of near-field communication (NFC) for functions like contactless payments, but it won't be the last. Mohammad Khan, president and founder of ViVOtech Inc., which is supplying handset-based wallet software and contactless …

The U.S. cash-payment market is enormous, but banks' hopes of penetrating it with so-called contactless technology could falter if high acceptance costs spur merchants to look at alternative electronic payment methods. That's one among a number of findings in a new study released this week on the market for transactions …

Fraudsters sent out fewer phishing e-mail campaigns in September, but they operated from more Web sites, launched several opportunistic campaigns?including ones designed to steal donations intended for Hurricane Katrina victims?and became even more inventive in their use of keyloggers and other malware. The number of unique phishing reports received by …

With identify fraud posing a serious challenge to online bankers and merchants, technology vendors are starting to respond with hardware- and software-based solutions offering so-called strong authentication, which adds a second factor of identity to the standard user-name/password pair. Now Corillian Corp. has launched a product it says is the …

PIN debit transactions are cheaper than debit card transactions secured by signature, incur lower fraud losses, and generate slightly higher average tickets, according to a survey of issuing banks. Taking into account processing costs as well as the cost of back-office fraud-management, chargebacks, settlement, customer service, and accounting functions, the …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has begun accepting cards issued on the Debitman Card Inc. network, a 5-year-old system that allows merchants to issue and accept PIN-secured debit cards and clear transactions through the automated clearing house. Wal-Mart began taking the Debitman card Nov. 1 at all 3,600 U.S. Wal-Mart and Sam's …

In a move that could lead First Data Corp. to sell its shrinking card-issuing operation, the Denver-based processor announced today it has hired investment banker Morgan Stanley to investigate options for the unit. The card-issuing business, one of three principal processing operations at First Data, has been rocked in recent …

Could Peppercoin Inc., a processor of micropayment transactions both online and in card-present venues, be eyeing opportunities in the hot market for contactless payments? Though he refuses to comment on whether the company has any such plans, Mark Friedman, the Waltham, Mass.-based company's chief executive, he has clearly watched developments …