Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Leading payment card processor First Data Corp. on Tuesday announced it had bought Perka Inc., a startup that provides smart-phone-based loyalty programs for merchants. The Perka buy comes just a few weeks after First Data unveiled a tablet-based point-of-sale system from Clover Network Inc., another startup that it quietly bought …
Read More »An Open Letter: Let’s Put a Stop to Criminal Practices in Our Industry—Now!
(An Open Letter to the Electronic Payments Industry) n On October 16, 2013, I delivered a keynote address to the Strategic Leadership Forum of the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) on my views of the evolution of the payments industry. At the beginning of this address, I told the audience that …
Read More »The ETA Responds to Heartland’s Bob Carr
In his Oct. 23, 2013, letter to the payments industry (“An Open Letter to the Electronic Payments Industry from Bob Carr”), the chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems provides a compelling historical overview of the challenges faced by our industry some three decades ago. As detailed in his letter, …
Read More »Merchants Cite “Don’t Know” as the Most Common Acquirer Name: Survey
Ideally, merchants that use payment card acceptance services would know which merchant acquirers they work with. But in a recent report from research firm Aite Group LLC, the most common response when merchants were asked to name their acquirers was “Don’t know.” Of the 491 U.S. merchants surveyed for …
Read More »PayPal Continues to Grow, Topping $1.6 Billion in Q3 Revenue
PayPal Inc., the financial services arm of marketplace eBay Inc., continues to work on expanding PayPal acceptance beyond e-commerce, and its decision last month to buy Braintree Payment Solutions LLC for $800 million is one part of that effort, eBay executives said Wednesday. EBay has been expanding the number …
Read More »Square Gets Into the Person-to-Person Payments Arena With its New Square Cash
By Jim Daly In a move that apparently signals its intention to become a more diversified financial-services provider, Square Inc. on Tuesday introduced a person-to-person payments service called Square Cash. The service, which works through email or mobile apps, has no fees for either the sender or recipient and only …
Read More »Isis’s Abbott Takes the Wraps off New App As Wallet Nears National Rollout
The carrier-controlled Isis mobile-payments system on Monday unveiled a new version of its application and predicted that about 30 million mobile phones will support the near-field-communication-based product by the end of 2014. Speaking at an industry trade show in Las Vegas, Michael Abbott, Isis’s chief executive, demonstrated the new mobile …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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, …
Read More »‘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 …
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