Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
New York State’s controversial BitLicense—the nation’s first regulations for virtual currency—are now final, and they’ve got some people on the cutting edge of payments worried about government interference. But Benjamin Lawsky, the official who oversaw the BitLicense’s development, said Wednesday that he hopes intelligent regulation can help modernize what he …
June, 2015
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4 June
MasterPass and Visa Checkout Announcements Highlight Digital Progress for Visa, MasterCard
By John Stewart Wednesday’s announcement by MasterCard Inc. that its MasterPass digital-payments service has signed up home-furnishings and décor e-retailer Wayfair, along with several Wayfair properties and mobile apps, threw into relief the progress the two giant general-purpose card networks are making in e-commerce and in-app payments. Once the province …
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4 June
VeriFone’s North American Revenues Jump 54%, but Top Brass Insists It’s Not All EMV
Sales in VeriFone Systems Inc.’s North America region jumped 54% in the quarter ended April 30 to $193 million from $125.3 million a year earlier, the payment-processing equipment maker reported Thursday. The big driver was the conversion of U.S. merchants’ point-of-sale terminals ahead of an October deadline for the devices …
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3 June
Seeking to Deliver a Cross-Channel View, VeriFone Cuts CyberSource Deal With Visa
Two dominant payments companies—Visa Inc. and VeriFone Systems Inc.—are teaming up to better secure the varying ways consumers shop across digital and face-to-face channels. Announced Wednesday, the deal lets San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone, which makes point-of-sale hardware and security products, gain access to Visa’s CyberSource platform that global merchants use …
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2 June
With New Digital Program, Visa Drops Token Fees, Offers Issuers Single Connection to All Services
With its Visa Digital Enablement Program, announced last week on the same day Google Inc. unveiled Android Pay, Visa Inc. has introduced application programming interfaces for card-issuing institutions to link to potentially thousands of digital-payments services with a single integration and without separate business agreements for each. Visa also hopes …
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1 June
JetPay And Rezzcard Team up to Tap Affordable-Housing Rent With a Prepaid Card
Rezzcard, a provider of payments services for tenants in affordable housing, has teamed with processor JetPay Corp. to offer a Visa-branded prepaid card, called the MAC card, as well as a mobile app, to tenants living in public, Section 8, tax-credit-subsidized, and workforce-housing developments. The Rezzcard app enables users to …
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1 June
COMMENTARY: Hey, Small Business, Why Are You Still Using Paper Checks?
In the last 10 years, the electronic movement of money has become easier than ever. More people are banking online, paying bills electronically, and making payments with their mobile devices. In fact, one-quarter of all smart-phone users have made a mobile payment in the last 12 months, and half of …
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1 June
Eye on Security: Heartland Theft, PA-DSS Updated, Sally Beauty Confirms Second Breach
Four computers containing Social Security and bank-account numbers for an estimated 2,200 individuals have been stolen from a California office of merchant processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s payroll-processing division, Heartland reported Monday. Also on Monday the PCI Security Standards Council updated its rules governing payment card software. And in other …
May, 2015
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29 May
Android Pay Vs. Apple Pay: Google Has Advantages, But Business Deals Will Win Battle
With Google Inc.’s announcement of Android Pay Thursday, the first major direct rival to Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay came into focus. While other Apple Pay competitors are already in the market or soon will be—handset giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and the retailer-controlled Merchant Customer Exchange LLC are expected to …
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28 May
Google’s Android Pay Debuts as an Apple Pay Fighter While Wallet Takes a Back Seat
Google Inc. is betting its latest mobile payments incarnation—Android Pay—will work better than Google Wallet did. Announced Thursday at Google I/O, its developer conference, Android Pay is poised to compete directly against Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay, PayPal Inc., and the upcoming Samsung Pay for a piece of the burgeoning mobile-payments …