News

October, 2013

• 2 October

  Card Network Executives Take Care To Narrowly Define Proposed Token Standard

  By John Stewart As dramatic as their joint tokenization announcement was on Tuesday, key officials with Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and American Express Co. cautioned on Wednesday against far-reaching industry speculation about how the announcement might affect or relate to other standards, including near-field communication (NFC) and the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) …
• 2 October

  Analysts See Smooth Transition at Global Payments As Garcia Gives Way to Sloan

  By Kevin Woodward The appointment on Tuesday of Jeffrey S. Sloan as the new chief executive of payment processor Global Payments Inc., succeeding long-time chief executive Paul Garcia, surprised hardly anyone. Sloan, who joined Global Payments as president in 2010, has a history with the company. Garcia, who was named …
• 1 October

  Mobile Purchases Claim a Rapidly Rising Share of E-Commerce Traffic, Gateway Study Shows

  By Kevin Woodward Smart phones and tablets continue to garner a larger share of payments as consumers increasingly use the mobile devices for more than talking and sending text messages, finds a survey from Amsterdam-based global gateway provider Adyen Inc. In the Adyen Global Mobile Payments Index, covering May through August, …
• 1 October

  Dueling Studies Reach Opposite Conclusions About Consumers’ Durbin Savings

  Durbin Amendment critics have long accused merchants of pocketing the billions they’ve saved since the amendment’s highly controversial debit card interchange price controls took effect two years ago Tuesday. Now, however, retailers are rolling out a study estimating that merchants passed on $5.86 billion in Durbin-related savings to consumers last …

September, 2013

• 30 September

  Survey Finds ATM and Most Other Checking Fees Growing Only Modestly in 2013

  The average ATM surcharge rose 4% over the last year, but the average foreign fee fell 2.5%, according to new data from research firm Bankrate Inc. Findings from Bankrate’s latest annual survey of checking-account fees, including ATM and overdraft charges, shows overall price increases have slowed, a possible indication that …
• 30 September

  Having Stopped Branch Sales, Chase Exits the Open-Loop Gift Card Business Entirely

  JPMorgan Chase & Co., which this spring stopped selling Visa gift cards through its network of branches, has now quit the business entirely. The decision comes weeks ahead of the biggest selling season of the year for gift cards but doesn’t surprise some observers, who point to the challenges recent …
• 29 September

  As Judge Mulls Settlement, a Thorny Issue over Merchant Claims Roils the Court

  All eyes in the payments business were riveted on Brooklyn earlier this month as lawyers wrangled in federal court over the proposed credit card interchange settlement. What many interested parties—including most observers in the courtroom that day–may have missed, however, is that the hearing brought to light for the first …
• 26 September

  Fast-Growing Braintree Brings Merchant Focus, Market Share to PayPal Wallet, Observers Say

  EBay Inc.’s agreement to shell out $800 million for Braintree Payments Solutions LLC, announced on Thursday, signals the online auction giant’s desire to extend its PayPal brand further into mobile commerce and in-store commerce, analysts suggest. EBay’s confirmation of the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, …
• 26 September

  ‘Medium-Sized’ Changes on Tap With PCI’s Pending Version 3.0

    The upcoming Version 3.0 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is being billed as having more than a few tweaks but not wholesale changes from the three-year-old Version 2.0 that it will replace in November. “It’s a medium-sized change,” says Anton Chuvakin, research director, security and risk …
• 25 September

  In Helping out Archrival Square, Intuit May Have More To Gain Than To Lose

  At first glance, it looks like a lopsided collaboration between competitors, but the agreement by which mobile point-of-sale upstart Square Inc. will integrate Intuit Inc.’s popular QuickBooks accounting software may end up benefiting both parties equally, some observers say. Under the deal, announced on Tuesday, users of the Square Register …