Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. announced early Tuesday that they and defendant banks have agreed to settle for $6.24 billion merchants’ monetary claims stemming from 13-year-old litigation over credit card interchange. Today’s announcements represent the second settlement of the sweeping class action known as MDL 1720 pending in U.S. District …
Read More »AmEx Experiments To Find the Right Solutions for the Post-Plastic World
American Express Co. formed its Digital Labs unit less than a year ago, and it has plenty to do as it evaluates new payment forms and new ways to attract cardholders and merchants. Digital Labs is concerned with digital payments, digital ways of engaging with cardholders, and research and development, …
Read More »Surcharging and Cash-Discount Programs Continue To Attract ISOs
Surcharges and discounts for cash aren’t brand-new pricing tactics, but interest in them by independent sales organizations is rising because of falling legal barriers and the potential profits. Repeated sessions about the topic were packed Thursday at the Western States Acquirers Association annual conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. The presenter was Ryan …
Read More »Global Mobile Contactless Payments To Hit $1 Trillion by 2022, Researcher Predicts
Mobile contactless payments are growing at a nearly 31% compounded annual rate and will exceed $1 trillion worldwide by 2022, according to a new forecast from 451 Research. The prediction is contained 451’s Global Unified Commerce Forecast, which estimates that total online commerce accounts for about 10% of purchases currently, …
Read More »USA Technologies’ Stock Tanks on News of Contract Investigation
Unattended payments provider USA Technologies Inc. lost a third of its value Tuesday morning on news it would delay filing its annual report while its board of directors investigates customer contracts and how business was booked. The company had until Sept. 13 to file its annual report with the Securities …
Read More »Eye on Data Breaches: British Airways Reports Hack; Survey Finds 21% of Equifax Victims Noticed ‘Unusual’ Financial Activity
Some 380,000 payment cards used by British Airways customers have been compromised in a data breach, and more than one in five consumers surveyed about last year’s massive breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. reported “unusual activity” in its wake, including new account openings. British Airways, one of Europe’s largest …
Read More »PayPal Still Reigns in Digital Wallets While Apple Pay Gains and Samsung Pay and Google Pay Diverge
PayPal remains by far the most popular digital wallet with U.S. consumers, but Apple Pay has gained the most since 2017’s third quarter, according to recent findings from technology research firm 451 Research. New York City-based 451’s Voice of the Connected Consumer survey asks consumers about their usage of 15 …
Read More »Transaction-Processor Stocks Beat the Market Once Again
Boosted by profits that mostly exceeded analysts’ expectations, payments companies in August once again beat the major stock indexes even though the markets themselves performed well, according to a new report from Barrington Research Associates Inc. Chicago-based Barrington said Wednesday that 27 publicly traded electronic-transaction processors it tracks posted a …
Read More »Eye on M&A: Elavon Buys Electronic Transaction Systems; FIS Sells Certegy Check Services
Merchant acquirer Elavon Inc. has acquired Electronic Transactions Systems Corp., an independent sales organization and business-software provider, Elavon parent company U.S. Bancorp announced Tuesday. Another payment processor, Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS), also reported Tuesday that it sold the assets of its Certegy Check Services unit to a private-equity …
Read More »True Believers Insist Blockchain And Cryptocurrencies Will Take Over the World
The panelists were not subtle in assessing the future of digital currencies and the decentralized blockchain technology behind them. “Cryptocurrencies and blockchain will take over the world, it will be a bigger impact on the world than the Internet,” said investment banker Dennis O’Neill, chief executive of Chicago-based O’Neill Capital …
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