Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Some 43% of businesses report they were exposed to card fraud in 2013, a whopping rise of 14 percentage points from 2012, according to the latest annual fraud survey from the Association of Financial Professionals. Nonetheless, survey respondents are remarkably optimistic about the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card standard, with 92% …
April, 2014
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3 April
Star Strikes Deal with MasterCard in the Latest Common AID Pairing
After a string of news from Visa Inc. about partnerships with electronic funds transfer networks to facilitate debit transactions with chip cards, MasterCard Inc. got back in the game Thursday with the announcement that First Data Corp.’s Star network will use MasterCard’s so-called common application identifier (AID). n Visa has …
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3 April
ETA Seeks A More Visible Presence at Regional Acquirer Conferences
Payments industry professionals attending one of the four regional acquiring conferences can expect to see more from the Electronic Transactions Association at the events. n “This is a conscious effort on the part of the ETA to participate, support them, and engage in mutually beneficial activities,” Oxman tells Digital Transactions …
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2 April
Startup PayStand Targets Online Sellers with Bitcoin Option, Fixed Monthly Fees
Merchants that think payment services should leverage software, be simple to integrate, carry low or no fees, and include digital-currency choices have a champion in PayStand, a startup that emerged Tuesday from private beta with $1 million in funding and a promise of no transaction fees for online sellers. The …
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1 April
Banks That Sued Trustwave and Target Have Second Thoughts and Withdraw Lawsuit
Two banks that sued Target Corp. and data-security services provider Trustwave Holdings Inc. in the wake of Target’s massive data breach have withdrawn their federal lawsuit after filing it only a week ago, leaving payments-industry observers wondering why they brought the action in the first place. In separate motions filed …
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1 April
Using Payment Card Data, Index Brings Personalized Shopping to In-Store Customers
E-commerce retailers have a unique advantage over their brick-and-mortar counterparts. They typically know quite a bit about a shopper’s purchasing habits, and that helps them create personalized offers that bring back customers to spend more. Index, a San Francisco-based company, hopes to give large brick-and-mortar retailers a tool to enable …
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1 April
Following Star, Accel, and Pulse, NYCE Selects Visa’s EMV Debit Technology
Debit network NYCE says it will use Visa Inc.’s common application identifier technology on chip debit cards, marking yet another regional debit network’s acceptance of a critical component to enabling Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card acceptance in the United States. This is NYCE’s first formal EMV license, says Fidelity National Information …
March, 2014
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31 March
Mercury Payment Systems Files Registration Statement for Possible IPO
The merchant-acquiring industry might soon get another publicly traded company should independent sales organization Mercury Payment Systems Inc. follow through on plans to sell a minority stake in the company. n Mercury Payment Systems Inc.’s operating subsidiary, Mercury Payment Systems LLC, currently is 62% owned by an affiliate of private-equity …
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31 March
Square Market Accepts Bitcoin As Good News/Bad News Pattern Continues for Currency
The up-and-down course Bitcoin has followed in recent months continued on Monday as Square Inc. announced it has started accepting the digital currency on Square Market, the online marketplace it unveiled last June. The news lent some legitimacy to Bitcoin just as the currency was reeling from an Internal Revenue …
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27 March
Eye on Bitcoin: It’s Not a Currency, the IRS Says; Jumio Launches Security Network
By Linda Punch Those looking for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to give Bitcoin legitimacy as a currency when the agency issued its guidance earlier this week were sorely disappointed. The IRS said the digital cash will be taxed like property, not currency. But the quest for legitimacy may be …