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Retailers’ increasing attention to making the checkout process a smooth and speedy one could potentially enhance the volume of mobile-commerce payments. One vendor trying to reform the checkout process is Moovweb, a San Francisco-based e-commerce platform provider. On Monday, it launched MoovCheckout, a service that helps retailers better manage their …
Read More »ATM Surcharges and Foreign Fees Are Up 4% to New Records, Bankrate Survey Finds
ATM surcharges rose 4% to an average of $2.88 this year from $2.77 in 2014, while foreign fees increased 3.8% to $1.64 from last year’s $1.58, Bankrate Inc. found in its latest annual study of checking account fees. Together, the two fees total $4.52, another new record and up 3.9% …
Read More »First Data Launches Its IPO With an Offering That Could Value Processor at $17.6 Billion
By John Stewart Payments-processing titan First Data Corp. on Thursday launched its long-awaited effort to go public with an initial offering of stock that would value the company at as much as $17.6 billion and raise as much as $3.2 billion. The IPO could well be the largest seen on …
Read More »With a Choice, Will Samsung Smart-Phone Owners Choose Samsung Pay?
Samsung Electronics America Inc.’s launch today of Samsung Pay, a mobile-payments service exclusive to its smart phones, could pose a quandary for consumers over whether they should choose Samsung Pay or Android Pay, Google Inc.’s mobile-payment service that wireless operators are loading onto the Android phones they sell. Samsung …
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 »CurrentC’s Pilot Is Under Way, But Users—And Some Clerks—Are in the Dark
By John Stewart At least some consumers in Columbus, Ohio, are using the Merchant Customer Exchange’s CurrentC mobile-payments app, but with little or no advertising so far finding a store cashier who knows about the app and how it works is a hit-or-miss proposition. That’s the finding of a CurrentC …
Read More »Faster Payments for Business: How the Stream Prepaid Card Expedites Disbursements
Heeding a call among businesses for faster and cheaper payments, payments provider Payment Data Systems Inc. has released the Stream general-purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid card to make it easier for companies to send funds, like commissions or rewards, to contractors or customers. The card, which bears a MasterCard Inc. brand, …
Read More »When “Free, Unlimited, Forever” Turns out To Have Limits, After All
By John Stewart While some startup transaction processors have capitalized lately on the idea of so-called free processing, at least one has now decided to backtrack on that concept. BitPay Inc., an Atlanta-based processor of Bitcoin transactions for merchants, announced Wednesday it is scrapping a plan it introduced only 14 …
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 …
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