Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
With voice commerce expected to grow from 18 million users last year to 78 million by 2022, according to Business Insider, sellers of all sorts are starting to pay attention to the technology’s potential to create new transaction markets—and perhaps steal volume from mobile devices. Early enthusiasts for voice are …
January, 2018
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23 January
FBI Data Show Fraudulent Online Sales of Cars and Outdoor Equipment, Funded by Gift Cards, Are Soaring
Fraudulent online sales of cars, recreational vehicles, boats, and outdoor equipment are soaring, with the scams typically funded through the victims’ gift cards, according to recent FBI data. A public-service announcement the FBI posted last week on its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Web site says the site received 26,967 complaints …
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22 January
Bank of America Merrill Lynch Brings Single-Use Account Numbers to Business Payments
Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch subsidiary on Monday announced enhanced capabilities for its Virtual Payables service, including the ability by corporate card-using businesses to create single-use account numbers in real time. In addition to the single-use card numbers, businesses with a BofA Merrill purchasing card can connect directly to …
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22 January
A Mobile Browser Aims To Thwart Smart-Phone Hijacking for Cryptocurrency Mining
As cryptocurrency values increase and draw more attention, individuals with ill intent are looking to hijack smart phones and desktop computers to mine digital currencies. Opera Software AS, a Norway-based browser developer, wants to prevent that for users of its technology. Opera introduced an anti-mining feature to its mobile browser …
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22 January
As Amazon Go Opens to the Public, Amazon Ushers in ‘Just Walk Out Shopping’
About a year later than it intended, Amazon.com Inc. on Monday opened to the public an 1,800-square-foot convenience store in Seattle that promises to streamline physical shopping and payment as the company has for decades smoothed out the wrinkles in e-commerce. Along with Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition last year of …
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22 January
Smart-Phone Maker OnePlus Confirms Hack and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/22/18
China-based smart-phone maker OnePlus, which sells phones in the U.S. and dozens of other countries, confirmed that its Web site was hacked, potentially exposing the credit card information of 40,000 customers as they entered card data on the oneplus.net site between mid-November and Jan. 11. OnePlus said it is notifying …
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19 January
How a Drive for Revenue Puts Pressure on AmEx’s Average Global Discount Rate
Unlike its rivals Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., American Express Inc. depends crucially on revenue from the fees it charges merchants for acceptance. These fees, in fact, account for 57% of the company’s overall revenues net of interest expense. So it came as no surprise that AmEx’s top brass spent …
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19 January
BofA Debit Card Volume Increases and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/19/18
Bank of America Corp. this week said fourth-quarter purchase volume on its debit cards rose 6% year over year to $77.9 billion. Debit card purchases for all of 2017 totaled $298.6 billion, up 5% from $285.6 billion in 2016. BofA claimed 24.2 million active mobile-banking customers at year’s end, up …
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18 January
The PCI Council Creates Associate QSA Program To Ease Cybersecurity Talent Shortage
The PCI Security Standards Council on Thursday unveiled its Associate Qualified Security Assessor program aimed at reducing a shortage of data-security professionals in the payments industry. The Wakefield, Mass.-based PCI Council certifies QSA companies to perform assessments of a firm’s compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, the main …
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18 January
Visa CEO Calls Bitcoin “Speculative” and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/18/18
Visa Inc. CEO Alfred Kelly told CNBC that Bitcoin currently is a “speculative commodity” and not “a payment-system player.” Visa only will process fiat currency transactions, Kelly said at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference this week in New York. Varo Money Inc. said it raised $45 million in a …