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Visa Inc.’s combined U.S. credit and debit card purchase volume grew nearly 10% in the quarter ending June 30, but the payment network’s net income plunged 76% mainly because of its costs to acquire Visa Europe. PayPal Holdings Inc., meanwhile, saw its volumes and bottom line increase in the second …
Read More »Eye on Debit: Pulse’s Volume Plunge Expected To Hit Bottom; EMV Still Crimping Blackhawk
Dollar volume on Discover Financial Services’ Pulse electronic funds transfer network declined 9% in the second quarter, but that was an improvement from the first quarter’s 15% plunge and the bottom is in sight, Discover said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the impact of grocery stores’ reluctance to accept credit cards for …
Read More »Wal-Mart Canada Carries Out Its Threat To Ban Visa Card Acceptance in Ontario City
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Canadian unit on Monday stopped accepting Visa cards at its three stores in Thunder Bay, Ontario, carrying out the threat the retailer issued last month in its dispute with Visa Inc. over card-acceptance costs. A spokesperson at Wal-Mart’s Canadian headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, as well as a …
Read More »Big Banks Report Rising Second-Quarter Debit and Credit Card Purchase Volumes
Payment card charge volumes and merchant-processing revenues rose at several of the nation’s biggest banks during the second quarter, according to company reports as the mid-year earnings season got underway this week. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp reported Friday that its payments businesses produced 22%, or $328 million, of the company’s $1.52 …
Read More »Retailers Urge House to Reconsider Bills That Would Repeal the Durbin Amendment
More than 120 retailers sent a letter Tuesday to the U.S. House of Representative’s Financial Services Committee urging the panel to reconsider two measures that would repeal the Durbin Amendment in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. The bills stand virtually no chance of becoming law while Barack Obama remains president, but with …
Read More »The NRF Says Many EMV-Ready Retailers Are Waiting Months for Needed Certifications
A new National Retail Federation survey found that 57% of retailers that had installed EMV chip card terminals in their stores claim they’ve been waiting for up to six months or even longer to get their equipment certified. Conducted in May and June, the survey also found that 48% of respondents …
Read More »Pricing Gravity Likely Grounded U.S. Bank’s Real-Time P2P Payments Fee
U.S. Bank tried, but it couldn’t make its $6.95 fee for real-time person-to-person payments stick. The nation’s fifth-largest bank by assets disclosed Wednesday that such payments are now free. The Minneapolis-based bank says it was the first to go live with real-time payments over the bank-developed clearXchange P2P payments network, …
Read More »NRF: Consumers Support Debit Card Interchange Cap
How do consumers feel about payment card acceptance costs, often referred to as “swipe fees”? According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, consumers want the existing debit card interchange price cap to continue, and they want credit card pricing to benefit them and merchants as opposed to “credit card …
Read More »Will Wal-Mart Give Visa the Boot in Canada?
Speaking of merchant-network skirmishes, fighting between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. broke out anew last month when, citing high acceptance costs, Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit announced that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores through a gradual phase-out set to begin July 18. Wal-Mart’s carefully phrased …
Read More »Certification Delays Crash VeriFone’s EMV Party
It was great while it lasted, but it looks like the chip card party is over for VeriFone Systems Inc., the leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, at least for now. The U.S. conversion to EMV chip cards had produced a North American revenue windfall for VeriFone over the past couple …
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