A startup company led by the former head of a processor of automated clearing house transactions is readying a network that will allow consumers to use their driver's licenses to pay for goods at the point of sale. Boulder, Colo.-based Combined Payments Network LLC plans to formally unveil its product, …

Philip W. Tomlinson, chief executive of payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), played up his firm's strong fourth-quarter and 2005 financials and growth prospects today despite the pending loss of the huge Bank of America Corp. consumer credit card file. Columbus, Ga.-based TSYS reported fourth-quarter net income of $49.7 …

Afer a let-up last summer, the phishing scourge appears to be getting worse. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reports the number of unique phishing attacks grew 6.7% in November over the count in October, to 16,882. This represents a new record high for the online fraud, in which criminals use bogus …

Accelitec Inc., a Seattle-based company that last year launched a contactless-payment system aimed at merchants rather than banks, says it is preparing for expansion this year by smoothing integration with existing merchant networks. The company's PayPilot product is in beta with an unidentified merchant, and officials say they expect to …

Deep discounts on interchange rates for Internet transactions authenticated through MasterCard International's SecureCode technology are taking effect just as the security system appears to be attracting more issuers and online merchants, according to a vendor of online authentication systems that supports both SecureCode and Visa USA's rival Verified by Visa …

The financial institutions whose online banking sites are doing the best job of protecting customers from identity fraud are Bank of America, Citibank, E*Trade Bank, Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo Bank, according to a study released today. These banks scored in the top five of 28 institutions whose online banking …

In its final holiday-spending report for the season, Visa USA said today retail spending on its cards hit $257 billion for November and December 2005, up 17.5% from the same period in 2004. Visa says e-commerce activity for the holiday-shopping season totaled $26.5 billion, peaking at $624 million on Dec. …

The first checks to merchants entitled to some of the $3.1 billion settlement fund in the Visa/MasterCard debit card antitrust lawsuit went out last month, but that was only a small fraction of the expected total distribution from what is widely known as the Wal-Mart settlement. That's according to the …

Projected pilots in 2006 for contactless payment capability on mobile phones with near-field communication (NFC) technology will include high-throughput retail stores, in contrast to the self-contained environment of a sports stadium, where the first such trial began last week (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 14). Tom Zalewski, head of mobile payment …

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 …