Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Jim Daly Grizzled veterans of the payments industry may not have warm and fuzzy feelings for card networks, but the view can be different from consumers’ eyes. In its 27th annual study of brands, a newly released Harris Poll EquiTrend report ranked Visa Inc. as the No. 1 payment …
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MCX Stalwart Best Buy Gives Apple Pay a Boost As Apple Records Strong Quarter
Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service will be accepted by electronics giant Best Buy Co. Inc., first for in-app purchases and then, later this year, in all of its 1,050 U.S. stores, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Monday. Cook also announced that some 50 hospitals have agreed to accept …
Read More »Mobile Wallet Relies on ACH for Lower Merchant Fees
A mobile wallet that uses the automated clearing house network to provide merchants with low acceptance costs is in tests with Team One Credit Union in Saginaw, Mich. MShift Inc., of Newark, Calif., is the developer of the mobile wallet it calls AnyWhereMobile. The app is integrated into Team One’s …
Read More »New Costs Imposed on Banks by Same-Day ACH Could Reshape Pricing Approach
By John Stewart Merchants that use the automated clearing house network to accept transactions may not be happy about a new fee expected to be part of a proposed same-day settlement plan, but the plan will impose significant new costs on financial institutions as well. And those costs could reshape …
Read More »With Its Spin-off Looming, PayPal Reports Strong Growth in Mobile, Overall
By John Stewart Ahead of an expected separation later this year from its long-time parent eBay Inc., PayPal Inc. on Wednesday reported strong growth in both its overall business and in the burgeoning mobile-payments market. Payments volume for the San Jose, Calif.-based processor climbed 24% in the first quarter compared …
Read More »Confluence of Trends Creating a “Golden Age” for Merchant Portfolios?
The allure of recurring revenue combined with low interest rates and investors prospecting for new assets are contributing to a potentially prosperous time for sellers of merchant portfolios. That’s the assessment from a presentation Tuesday at the Southeast Acquirers Association annual conference in New Orleans. Also, the Electronic Transactions Association …
Read More »Will Increasing Regulation of the Acquiring Industry Abroad Affect the U.S. Market?
By Jim Daly The Canadian government’s move last week to strengthen its Code of Conduct for the payment card industry and the European Union’s approval in March of rock-bottom interchange rates for credit and debit cards has observers wondering if more regulation is in store for the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry. …
Read More »Retailers Eye EMV as a Near-Term Reason for POS System Upgrades
Retailers will take their time upgrading their point-of-sale systems for compatibility with the EMV chip card standards, finds EKN Research’s “2015 Retail Point-of-Sale Blueprint” report. Only a minority of retailers—mostly the largest ones—will be ready by Oct. 1, though within two years 70% of them will be ready for the …
Read More »Despite Its Woes, AmEx Manages To Report Respectable First-Quarter Financials
By Jim Daly Coming off a winter of discontent, American Express Co. late Thursday reported some respectable financial results for the first quarter. The loss of its relationships with Costco Wholesale Corp. in Canada, however, affected charge volumes, a prelude to the loss of Costco as a merchant acceptor and …
Read More »New POS Malware Hides in Plain Sight
Criminals have developed a new family of point-of-sale malware that hides in plain sight, riding along with core processes inside Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, says Chicago-based Trustwave Holdings Inc., which uncovered the malware during a recent U.S. Secret Service investigation. Dubbed “Punkey” because of the “unkey” command within its …
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