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Signature-based debit continued to grow at double-digit rates in the second quarter, as indicated by statistics released today by MasterCard International. Total MasterCard signature, or off-line, debit volume hit $48 billion in the U.S., up 32.3% over the same period last year. The point-of-sale component of this activity was $29.1 …
Read More »Colorado Becomes Latest Market in Chase’s Contactless Rollout
Continuing its national rollout of contactless card technology, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s Chase Bank U.S.A. unit said it will begin issuing the chip-equipped cards early this month in Colorado. The announcement follows by 15 days the bank's introduction of its contactless card, which it calls “blink,” in Atlanta, the …
Read More »AmEx Begins National ExpressPay Rollout, Signs 7-Eleven for Acceptance
American Express Co. today said it has commenced a nationwide rollout of its ExpressPay contactless card program and announced that 7-Eleven Inc. would accept the AmEx technology, which is being embedded in the New York-based T&E giant's Blue card. The Dallas-based convenience-store chain joins pharmacy chain CVS Corp. as national …
Read More »Chase Says Its New Blink Card Will March Through Atlanta First
Atlanta is where J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will begin its rollout of contactless cards, starting June 1, the bank announced today. Chase, which said last week it would begin issuing the chip-equipped cards this summer in a region-by-region rollout (Digital Transactions News, May 19), says almost 1 million of …
Read More »C-Stores Adopting RFID Have Priorities Besides Interchange Costs
Contactless payment technology picked up momentum with yesterday's news that 7-Eleven Inc. is adopting the technology chainwide and that Sheetz Inc. has completed installations at all 309 of its stores. And, contrary to some observers' argument that contactless payment will be held back by the absence of special breaks on …
Read More »Chase’s Big Bet on Contactless May Hinge on Merchant Adoption
Technology that allows consumers to pay at the point of sale by waving or tapping a card or other token took a major step forward today with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s announcement that it will issue millions of cards equipped with the technology starting this summer. Following on the …
Read More »Why Ritz Camera Decided to Adopt PayPass Throughout Its Chain
Ritz Camera Centers Inc., which last week announced it would adopt MasterCard's PayPass contactless card program chainwide, says it hopes to use the technology to hasten photo-finishing customers through the checkout process. “They're in the stores two or three time a week, and they want the service to be kind …
Read More »MasterCard and Visa Agree on Standard for Contactless Payments
MasterCard International and Visa International, which are now both offering platforms in the U.S. for contactless card transactions based on radio-frequency identification technology, have agreed on a common communications protocol and on testing requirements for the technology. The agreement should mean that payment devices branded by one of the associations …
Read More »Behind Visa’s About-Face on Contactless Payments in the U.S.
Visa USA's decision to enter the contactless payment market represents a major change in strategy at the card association, which up to now had experimented with radio-frequency-based payment overseas but had not seen the U.S. as ripe for the technology. Now, with its announcement last week that it had created …
Read More »Report: 2005 Will Be a Breakthrough Year for RFID Payments
This will be a year of substantial deployment for contactless payments based on radio-wave technology as card networks roll out programs and merchants find the systems perform as promised, a new research study says. “Merchants are finding it works,” says Erik Michielsen, director for RFID and ubiquitous networks at ABI …
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