Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Jim Daly New York has its new BitLicense and California is actively looking at regulations for virtual currencies, but the organization that promotes uniform state laws is working on a prospective law that would guide regulations for alternative and mobile payments. The Chicago-based Uniform Law Commission (ULC) created its Alternative …
Read More »When “Free, Unlimited, Forever” Turns out To Have Limits, After All
By John Stewart While some startup transaction processors have capitalized lately on the idea of so-called free processing, at least one has now decided to backtrack on that concept. BitPay Inc., an Atlanta-based processor of Bitcoin transactions for merchants, announced Wednesday it is scrapping a plan it introduced only 14 …
Read More »With EMV Looming, a Tool Emerges To Simplify Integrations with POS Systems
Managing the integration of EMV payment acceptance into point-of-system software can be replete with nuances unfamiliar to many developers. That’s where a product announced Tuesday by two payments companies working jointly could assist. Seattle-based independent sales organization Gravity Payments Inc. has teamed with Creditcall Ltd., a United Kingdom-based transaction gateway …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Five Questions Merchants Should Ask About EMV Terminals
By Terry Dooley Deadline: A date or time when something must be finished: the last day, hour, or minute that something will be accepted. The word “deadline” carries with it the implication of pressure—pressure to act or face the consequences. That’s the very word being tossed around when people talk …
Read More »With EMV’s Big Date Just 10 Days off, Consumers Say They’re Not Ready for It
The three-legged stool of merchants, payments companies, and consumers necessary to enable EMV chip card acceptance may be a little wobbly in the early going if the results of a new consumer survey are any indication. Fifty-nine percent of consumers say they are not ready for EMV, finds a survey …
Read More »Consumers Know EMV Is Coming, They’re Just Not Sure What It’s All About
By Kevin Woodward Consumers know their credit and debit cards are changing, they’re just not sure exactly what is happening. That’s one of the findings from a survey released by payments provider Harbortouch. In the survey of 18,000 U.S. consumers, 89.4% said they were aware of the transition from magnetic …
Read More »With Macy’s on Board, PayPal’s Brick-And-Mortar POS Initiative Catches a Tailwind
Leading online payments provider PayPal Holdings Inc. disclosed late Tuesday that the big department-store chain Macy’s Inc. would accept PayPal not only on its Web sites and on mobile devices but also in its stores. The announcement breathes new life into PayPal’s years-long effort to come to the physical point …
Read More »AmEx’s Deal With Sam’s Club Will Only Partially Fill the Costco Hole
American Express Co. soon will be accepted at Sam’s Club, the membership-club division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The new deal will open more than 650 warehouse stores with thousands of big-spending customers to AmEx, but it still will fall short of filling the big hole that the warehouse-club sector’s biggest …
Read More »Visa’s Latest EMV Snapshot: 127 Million Chip Cards, 295,000 EMV-Accepting Locations
By Jim Daly With the much-heralded EMV liability shift now less than a month away, the United States could be likened to briskly walking, though hardly running, toward the finish line of full-fledged chip card payments. New figures provided by Visa Inc. to Digital Transactions News on Friday show that …
Read More »PayPal To Eliminate Tiered Pricing for Its Smallest U.S. Merchants
PayPal Holdings Inc. will eliminate volume-based price tiers and charge all of its small U.S. merchants 2.9% of the sale plus 30 cents per domestic transaction come Oct. 1, according to a notice the leading online-payments firm began sending to merchants Thursday. The 2.9%-plus-30-cents tier is the highest rate under …
Read More »