With Ed Labry this week taking over First Data Corp.'s acquiring business, including First Data Merchant Services, some industry observers are figuring the Denver-based processing giant may be looking toward spinning off both the merchant division and the lucrative Western Union franchise as independent companies some time within the next …

The phishing scourge made a comeback in October, hitting a new record level after three straight months of decline. The number of reported, unique phishing e-mails came to 15,820, up 17% from the 13,562 reported in September, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of electronic payment companies, software …

An Omaha, Neb.-based maker of biometrically secured identity cards says it expects to participate in contactless-payment pilots within three months, with a commercial rollout possible by mid-2006. Five-year-old Digital Defense Group says its credit-card-size token, which contains a fingerprint sensor and an RFID chip, is compliant with MasterCard International's PayPass …

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 …

An image-exchange network controlled by some of the nation's largest banks says volume in the network reached 8.8 million items in November, up 38% over October and nearly 500 times greater than in January, when the system began commercial operation. SVPCO, a unit of New York-based The Clearing House Payments …

Has the explosion in consumer usage of signature-based debit cards created a bonanza for banks in fees charged for insufficient funds? At least one analyst thinks so. “It's the dirty little secret in the industry,” says Steve Mott, a former MasterCard executive and principal at BetterBuyDesign, a Stamford, Conn., consultancy. …

The new chief executive of First Data Corp. is likely to bring renewed focus to the processing giant's merchant-acquiring business and move quickly to resolve the drag on growth represented by the company's processing business that supports card issuers, say industry observers. At the same time, Henry C. (Ric) Duques, …

The banks that own MasterCard Inc. cleared the way today for the bank card network to offer stock to the public and to reconstitute its governing board. By an overwhelming margin in a special meeting of shareholders, MasterCard’s shareholders approved the company’s proposal for an initial public offering that will …

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 …