Friday , March 29, 2024

John Stewart

Starting as an editor on Bank Network News at Faulkner & Gray, John ultimately played a key role in starting, editing, and publishing many of F&G's flagship publications, including Credit Card Management, Card Technology, Card Marketing, and Collections & Credit Risk. Before co-founding Boland Hill Media, John was a group publisher at Thomson Media responsible for a $10 million division embracing magazines, newsletters, and Web sites.

E-Commerce Is on a Tear, But How Much of That Volume Stems From Roaring Inflation?

It’s a well-known fact that the pandemic drove consumers to e-commerce for goods they might otherwise have shopped for in stores, but now evidence is emerging that some of that increase in online spending is a result of steadily rising inflation. Consumers spent $83.1 billion online last month, up 7% …

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There’s More to Lose in Not Offering BNPL Than in Offering It, Providers Warn

The buy now, pay later trend may have come under scrutiny lately by regulators, but companies enabling BNPL warn sellers and payments providers risk losing merchant volume and younger consumers if they don’t offer the installment option online and at the point of sale. “You’ll see volume attrition without merchant …

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With New Sheriffs in Town, Payment Players Can Expect Stiffer Scrutiny, a Lobbyist Warns 

Payments companies have sensed increasing regulatory pressure since the Biden Administration’s inauguration last year, and now experts who follow developments in Washington, D.C., are confirming it. After a relatively “light touch” during the Trump Administration, “the [regulatory] pendulum has come back this way” toward a harder look at payments practices, …

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Eyeing the Contactless Market, MagTek Launches Its DynaFlex II And DynaProx Readers

Payments-technology provider MagTek Inc. on Tuesday launched the latest product on its DynaFlex platform, the DynaFlex II card reader, and also unveiled its DynaProx family of readers for transactions involving NFC mobile wallets as well as barcodes. The new technology follows a two-year span in which businesses have sought out …

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Eye on ISOs: Shift4’s Airport Deal; Payroc Snaps up Iroquois Merchant Services

Ontario International Airport in California is adopting Shift4 Payments Inc.s’ VenueNext mobile point-of-sale technology to allow passengers to order and pay for food and merchandise using their mobile phones. The service includes new self-checkout technology that allows travelers to scan a UPC code, add it to a shopping cart, and …

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Crypto, Gift Cards, And Even BNPL Come to Unattended Payments Via PayRange

Transactions on gift cards and cryptocurrency—and even buy now, pay later capability—are coming to commercial washers, dryers, and vending machines with an announcement Monday by PayRange Inc. that it will support the new payment methods. The Portland, Ore.-based company, which says it processes for more than half a million commercial …

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U.S. Merchant Acquiring Volume Surpasses $9 Trillion Even As E-Commerce Slows

The 25 biggest U.S. merchant acquirers control about 90% of payment dollar volume, even as e-commerce may be losing some of its recent momentum, according to the latest ranking of U.S. merchant acquirers by The Strawhecker Group, released this week. Overall, U.S. acquirers processed more than $9 trillion in payment …

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Losses From Stolen Identities Skyrocketed 79% to $24 Billion in 2021, a Javelin Study Finds

Payments providers are increasingly resuming business-as-usual as the pandemic eases, but so are criminals. Losses from identity-fraud schemes, in which fraudsters use stolen payment credentials for their own gain, soared 79% last year to $24 billion, according to a study released Tuesday by Javelin Strategy & Research. Moreover, this so-called …

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Eye on Security: Panini Meets FBI Standards, And VGS Gets Set to Launch Card Tokens

Panini S.p.A., which has been expanding beyond its base in devices for image processing, said early Tuesday the Federal Bureau of Investigation has certified its fingerprint-authentication technology, called BioCred. The scanning technology meets image-quality specifications set by the FBI’s Appendix F standard, said to be the law-enforcement agency’s highest standard …

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Eye on the Sky: CellPoint Signs Virgin Atlantic, And Garmin Unveils a New Smart Watch

The return of travel following the impact of the pandemic is testing airlines in various ways, not the least of which is their openness to payment methods beyond cards in what for them is a global market. That new emphasis, combined with a need to work with multiple acquirers, is …

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