Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
The first Bitcoin futures contracts began trading at 6 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday and almost right away the volume of activity crashed a Web site operated by the exchange, Cboe Global Markets Inc. After an initial run up, Bitcoin was trading around $16,500 by 10 a.m. Monday. A rival exchange, …
December, 2017
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11 December
COMMENTARY: Instant Check Cashing Earns Customers And Grows Revenue
The reasons why consumers hate checks are numerous: waiting for a check to arrive in the mail, finding an institution to deposit it, waiting another three to five days for funds to clear, then fearing it might bounce. Nearly everyone would agree that it’s an antiquated process filled with stress …
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8 December
Bitcoin’s Fast Rise Has Investors Giddy But Obscures a New Solution for Network Growth
Bitcoin’s heady rise this year has pleased investors and drawn the attention of derivatives exchanges and other institutional players, but it may also have obscured a development going on behind the scenes to solve one of the digital currency’s biggest drawbacks: its weakness as a payment method. Bitcoin, which started …
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8 December
Consumers Using More Revolving Credit and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/8/17
Consumer revolving credit jumped 9.9% on an annualized basis in October, seasonally adjusted preliminary data from the Federal Reserve show. Revolving credit outstandings, most of which are credit card debt, hit $1.01 trillion, up 5.9% from $955.3 billion in October 2016. PayCargo LLC, an online-payment platform that allows shippers and carriers to …
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7 December
Cardless ATM Use Advances With Bank’s Deployment of Mastercard’s Cash Pick-Up Service
The evolution of ATMs away from strictly card-based usage and toward mobile devices advanced Thursday when Fort Lee, N.J.-based Cross River Bank reported that it is the first bank to offer Mastercard Inc.’s Cash Pick-Up service. The service, which Mastercard announced in September, enables so-called underbanked or unbanked consumers to …
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7 December
How Should a Global Network Be Governed? An Answer from AmEx’s Chenault Sparks Debate
Whether he intended to or not, Ken Chenault may well have touched off a debate about what constitutes the ideal governance structure for a global payments network. Chenault, who will retire early next year as chairman and chief executive of American Express Co., charged this week that his two big …
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7 December
BitPay Raises $30 Million and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/7/17
Valve Corp., which operates Steam, a popular gaming site, said it no longer is accepting Bitcoin because of the digital currency’s volatility and acceptance costs, which reached almost $20 in a transaction last week. Bitcoin processor BitPay Inc. said it raised $30 million in additional funding. In 2014, the company …
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6 December
Discover Could Be a Big Winner If Users And Merchants Embrace Apple Pay Cash for Purchases
Discover Financial Services could find itself in the catbird’s seat if Apple Inc.’s new Apple Pay Cash person-to-person payment service gains popularity as a way to pay merchants. In addition to its main P2P function, Apple Pay Cash is accepted at any merchant location that accepts Apple’s 3-year-old Apple Pay …
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6 December
Chenault’s Parting Shot at Competitors and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/6/17
American Express Co. chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault said at an investor conference Tuesday that banks’ sale of their stakes in Mastercard and Visa through initial public offerings “was one of the biggest strategic blunders of the last 20 years,” according to Bloomberg. Chenault, who will retire in February, …
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6 December
Discover Is the Latest To Erase a Signature Requirement for Credit and Debit Transactions
Discover Financial Services cardholders soon won’t have to sign for their credit and debit transactions made at the point of sale. As of April 2018, Discover is dropping the signature requirement for transactions made on the Discover Global Network in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, the Riverwoods, …