Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Lately, the payments industry has been much taken with the so-called Millennial generation and how to appeal to it. Research released Wednesday indicates a key to this question is to take advantage of the one smart-phone activity the 18-to-34 age group has made famous: the selfie. The research, conducted by …
Read More »Ziosk Brings EMV And Mobile Payments to Sit-Down Eateries With Its Tabletop Tablet
By John Stewart Mobile payments have invaded many areas of consumer commerce, and now they’re about to show up in sit-down restaurants. Dallas-based Ziosk LLC said late last week it will add capability for Apple Pay and Android Pay acceptance to its custom-built Ziosk tabletop tablet starting early next year. …
Read More »How Google Wallet’s New P2P Focus Could Rescue the App From a Mediocre Legacy
The latest version of Google Wallet tended to get lost in all the hoopla surrounding Google Inc.’s launch two weeks ago of its Android Pay mobile-payments service, but while Wallet now has more modest ambitions, it could prove to be a potent force in the rapidly growing person-to-person payments business. …
Read More »With Its Spree Commerce Buy, First Data Aims To Bolster Its Online Tech Foundations
Payment processor First Data Corp. has acquired Spree Commerce, a provider of open-source software for 45,000 e-commerce storefronts. The addition of Bethesda, Md.-based Spree could bolster First Data as it competes with processors and tech providers for more business in the fast-growing world of online retailing. “Spree is at the …
Read More »As Holiday Season Nears, System Hiccups Trip Up Virtual Gift Card Offerings
By John Stewart When Nikki Baird and Steve Rowen evaluated retailers’ digital gift cards this year, the thing that surprised them the most was how disjointed the shopper experience is. Card sales that worked just fine at a merchant’s desktop site just didn’t translate well to a mobile device, for …
Read More »With Its Relay API, Stripe Enlists in Effort to Drive up Conversion Rates in M-Commerce
By John Stewart With conversion rates dismally low in mobile commerce, technology players have been working to streamline transactions with tools that let shoppers buy with as few clicks as possible and while staying within an app. Late Monday, online processor Stripe Inc. joined that effort with Relay, an application …
Read More »Once a Power in M-Payments, Carriers Now Play a Lesser Role As New Wallets Emerge
By John Stewart With Google Inc.’s Sept. 10 launch of Android Pay, competition in the mobile-payments market heated up to an even higher temperature. But in all the talk about tech companies, handset makers, and banks ushering in services like Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s Samsung …
Read More »Android Pay Arrives, Ready To Displace Old Google Wallet Memories
Google Inc.’s latest foray into mobile payments made its way to the public Thursday when the technology giant announced the release of Android Pay. Available only on smart phones and tablets enabled for near-field communication (NFC) and using the KitKat4 or later operating system, Android Pay enables consumers to load …
Read More »As Traffic Heats up, the ACH Continues To Expand at 5%-Plus Rate
By John Stewart Transactions on the automated clearing house network grew 5.4% in the second quarter, the second straight period of 5%-plus expansion for the 40-year-old system, which reaches virtually every financial institution in the country. That’s according to numbers reported by NACHA, the organization that regulates the ACH. The …
Read More »Looking Past Transaction Fees, Dwolla White-Labels a Quartet of API Functions
When Dwolla Inc. in June eliminated its 25-cent transaction fee, it said it intended to make money by launching value-added services that would leverage the network technology it had created. On Wednesday, it launched the latest chapter in this plan with a white-label service that lets banks, businesses, and government …
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