Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
E-Commerce The Bill-Pay Horse Race Peter Lucas After years of lagging behind, bill-payment Web sites sponsored by financial institutions finally have achieved parity with biller-direct sites. But the outcome of the long-term race is still uncertain, given some compelling features billers’ sites retain. After slugging it out for market share …
Read More »Search Results for: card data
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. …
Read More »The War on Attrition
The War on Attrition Jane Adler High attrition rates are likely to continue as the economy finds its footing and competition among acquirers for merchants remains fierce. After being rocked by recession and weak recovery for several years, merchant acquirers may have felt like they turned the corner in December …
Read More »PA-DSS ‘Guidance’ for Mobile Apps Likely to Come This Year, PCI Council Says
A freeze on approvals of mobile applications for card acceptance by merchants, announced in November by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), will likely be lifted some time before the end of the year. Top officials with the Wakefield, Mass.-based organization tell Digital Transactions News the Council is working …
Read More »VeriFone Details the Element of Risk in Its Planned Hypercom Buy-Out
Every corporate merger presents risks to the companies involved and their owners, employees, and customers. Leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc.’s planned takeover of smaller rival Hypercom Corp. is no exception: a recent regulatory filing detailing VeriFone’s merger plans devotes 26 pages to a host of risks. Of …
Read More »TSYS Cements Strategic About-Face with Takeover of First National Merchant Solutions
Total System Services Inc. on Tuesday brought to an end a short-lived joint venture with First National Bank of Omaha by buying the 49% of FNBO unit First National Merchant Solutions LLC it didn’t already own. In the deal, TSYS paid FNBO $169.6 million for the remaining stake, implying a …
Read More »Rewriting the Transaction Routing Rules
Rewriting the Transaction Routing Rules The Durbin Amendment throws out exclusive debit network agreements and gives merchants more freedom to route debit transactions according to their wishes. Who will win and lose in the post-Durbin world? BY JIM DALY By the time you read this, the Federal Reserve Board will …
Read More »‘We’re Betting on the Gesture of Tapping’
Transactors ‘We’re Betting on the Gesture of Tapping’John Stewart By building bridges between the online and offline worlds, Bling Nation hopes to popularize ‘tapping in’ at merchants. It’s all about going viral, says one of the mobile-payments startup’s top executives. Scarcely two years old, Bling Nation Ltd. has already deployed …
Read More »Trends & Tactics
Trends & Tactics PayPal Eyes Payments from Couch Potatoes Might PayPal Inc.’s next advertising theme be, “As Seen on TV”?Having recently struck deals that will bring it to the physical point of sale, the payments unit of eBay Inc. is working with a Texas television-technology specialist to handle anticipated growing …
Read More »Consumers Open Wallets, Hike Spending 5.5% in Run-up to Christmas
Consumers brought holiday cheer back to merchants and payment processors in the run-up to Christmas this year, spending 5.5% more during the period than they did last year and giving signs that they are opening wallets and purses again after a long recession and rocky recovery. Especially noteworthy were sharp …
Read More »