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 …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is extending its rollout of contactless payment technology to the populous northeast corridor of the country. Its Chase Bank U.S.A. N.A. said today it will begin sending new cards equipped with chips and tiny radio transmitters to some 2.9 million cardholders this week. In addition, about …

A new guidance from federal banking regulators calling traditional user names and passwords “inadequate” for online banking could lead to a major push for strong authentication next year. The guidance, released last month by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, recommends what it calls multi-factor authentication, or identification systems involving …

The number of unique e-mail campaigns sent as part of phishing frauds fell in August to 13,776, almost 400 fewer than in July and the lowest number since March, according to statistics released today by the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of payments processors, software vendors, and law-enforcement agencies that …

This week's announced integration of giant merchant acquirers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. by their respective owners (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 5) creates a single entity of unprecedented scale?more than $500 billion in annual bank card charge volume through 13 billion transactions in the U.S. and Canada?but one …

Internet retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. will likely begin accepting payments cleared through the automated clearing house from at least a portion of its customer base, possibly by the end of this month, says a source familiar with the matter. This source, who asked to remain anonymous, says the move would …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and First Data Corp. have come to terms on the long-awaited merger of acquiring-service providers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. in a deal that will create a behemoth processor handling 13.1 billion electronic transactions annually. According to a news release distributed this afternoon by …

The rising interest among banks and Internet merchants in more robust methods to verify that online customers are who they say they are is helping drive business for a form of such verification known as knowledge-based authentication. Verid Inc., a 6-year-old supplier of KBA processing services, says its transaction volume, …

With online merchants in the U.S. increasingly seeking business overseas, TransFirst Inc. is adopting automated currency-conversion technology from E4X Inc. Dallas-based TransFirst, which processes card transactions for 160,000 merchants?including an increasing number of card-not-present merchants?will offer automated currency conversion to its clients as part of its processing service. E4X says …

Universal Air Travel Plan, which processes corporate travel payments for some 200 accepting airlines around the world, is opening its network to third-party Internet transaction processors as part of a strategy that could significantly boost network volume and bring consumer transactions through its settlement system for the first time. Ralph …