PayPal Inc.'s decision to enter the broad micropayments market could help the Internet payments processor boost transaction volumes and attract new accountholders, but by how much is currently a guessing game, experts say. “I'm not educated enough yet to say whether it's going to be material,” says Gwenn Bezard, research …

A top official of a regional gasoline marketers' association who wrote a letter to Congress earlier this month calling for regulation of bank card interchange fees says he would like to see the federal government impose a cap on interchange. “They need to look at Australia [where banking regulators last …

Electronic bill-payment processor Online Resources Corp. plans to have three PIN-less debit pilots live by year's end, says Matthew P. Lawlor, chief executive of the Chantilly, Va.-based company. He sees high potential for the product in the stored-value and debt-collections markets, and hints the pilots will be aimed at these …

As the number of headlines about database breaches grows, so too does the number of lawsuits filed in response, as well as the amount of legislation aimed at better protecting consumer data. Several suits have already been filed in the wake of recent thefts of card data at Columbus, Ohio-based …

Star Systems Inc. will begin processing bill payments through its electronic check-conversion service, Star Chek Direct, by the end of the year, according to officials at the network. In the bill-payment scenario, consumers will be able to pay billers in certain low-risk industry categories, such as insurance and utilities, by …

With the unrelenting rise of phishing attacks, banks and merchants are hunting for new ways to secure the identity of consumers in online transactions. That's creating opportunities for companies like LexisNexis, proprietor of one of the world's largest databases of public-record information. Now the company's RiskWise unit is looking at …

Citigroup Inc.'s decision to issue American Express cards may turn out to be a more symbolic than substantive victory in the credit card wars for AmEx, according to some observers. “It's clearly a victory, but more a marketing victory,” says Gwenn Bezard, a payments-industry analyst at New York-based research firm …

As the PayPal Inc. online payment service returned to normal yesterday, its technical problems of the past several days have raised the specter in some circles of the company's non-bank status. Some observers, particularly bankers, have long argued that as a non-bank financial entity, PayPal is not bound by many …

Although Internet transactions have become a highly popular form of payment on the automated clearing house network, the emergence of direct debit online may stunt the growth of Web ACH transactions, an executive with a major Internet payment processor said today. Internet payments, which the National Automated Clearing House Association …

Retail Decisions Inc. and I4Commerce Inc. have both signed on new Internet merchants for e-commerce transaction processing. Indianapolis-based Finish Line Inc., which operates 560 stores selling athletic wear in 46 states, has signed on for ReD's ebitGuard online fraud detection service to screen for fraud on its Web site. Kent …