Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Mutual need brought Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO) and Intuit Inc. together in the $142 million deal, announced last week, that will make Camarillo, Calif-based processor ECHO part of Intuit, Mountain View, Calif., some time in the first quarter (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 15). Intuit, marketer of the popular QuickBooks …
Read More »Intuit Offers $142 Million for ECHO To Cap Payments ‘Portal’
Intuit Inc. has notched yet another acquisition calculated to augment its widely used accounting software with electronic-payments capability by agreeing to pay $142 million in cash to buy Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO), a publicly held, Camarillo, Calif.-based processor of card and automated clearing house transactions. The deal, which is …
Read More »PayPal Says Monster Signing Sets Stage for ’07 Site Recruitment
PayPal Inc., the online payment service of online auction firm eBay Inc., has signed another big company in its quest to expand beyond eBay users, and the processor says more such clients are coming next year. This week, Monster, the leading online job-search and recruitment service, said it has begun …
Read More »Rebranded, ClickandBuy Adds an E-Wallet And Phone Billing, Eyes P2P
Online payments processor ClickandBuy this week announced what it calls “Version 2.0” of its digital-content platform, which includes an electronic wallet, long-awaited billing through two major U.S. phone companies, lower merchant pricing, and a new name, to boot. Parent company Firstgate Internet AG of Zug, Switzerland, has chucked the ampersand …
Read More »Spoofed Sites Proliferate As Phishers Seek To Foil Toolbars, Other Filters
A new tactic used by Internet fraudsters is causing a dramatic upsurge in the number of Web sites hosting phishing attacks. The number of fake sites phishing fraudsters use to con Internet users into giving up PINs, passwords, and other confidential information soared to 37,444 in October, up nearly nine-fold …
Read More »Visa Announces PCI Compliance Carrots to Go Along With Sticks
Hoping to push up compliance with its data-security rules, Visa USA on Tuesday announced first-ever incentives?including cash payments–to go along with new penalties for acquiring banks that serve the 1,200 largest Visa-accepting merchants. The carrot-and-stick package, intended to get acquirers to bring more merchants into compliance with the Payment Card …
Read More »SMS Aside, Consumers Pan M-Commerce Data Plans on Price
Digital content like video, games, and music delivered as part of cell-phone subscriber plans may be getting plenty of attention these days, but it's turning out to be a harder sell than many mobile-commerce enthusiasts had thought. Some 72.5% of respondents in a survey of more than 2,500 U.S. wireless …
Read More »Canadian Test in 2007 Foreshadows a National Chip Rollout
Visa, MasterCard, and Canada's national debit network are preparing to launch a test in Ontario for a Canadian chip and PIN system that its backers hope will ultimately eliminate the magnetic stripe on all cards and replace signatures on all Visa and MasterCard credit cards. The test will start next …
Read More »Co-Op Readies a Credit-Union Entry Into ATM Check Imaging
Big banks get most of the attention when the topic turns to check imaging at ATMs. Now credit unions are about to get into the act. Ontario, Calif.-based Co-Op Financial Services, formerly known as the Co-Op Network, plans to make check imaging available to its nearly 2,000 credit-union members in …
Read More »Can Twelve More Months of Free Processing Make Checkout Click?
Google Inc.'s decision to extend Checkout's offer of free processing to the end of 2007, which it announced Wednesday, could help the 6-month-old online payments service attract more merchants at a time when it's not only up against heavy-duty competition, but also facing skepticism from some online sellers. The new …
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