Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
At first glance, the nascent mobile-payments business doesn’t seem to be the major driver of Google Inc.’s $12.5 billion cash acquisition of cell-phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. The deal, however, could spur payments using near-field communications (NFC) technology as software companies, phone manufacturers, and mobile-communications software companies jockey for …
Read More »Just As NFC Gains Impetus, An Analyst Casts Doubt on Supply of Phones
With companies like Google Inc., Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and the major wireless carriers talking in recent months about near-field communication projects, observers could be forgiven for concluding that NFC-based mobile payments are poised for a breakthrough in the U.S. market. There could be just one problem: no NFC …
Read More »A New Alphabet Soup, VARs and ISVs, Spells An Effective, But Expensive, Channel for Acquiring
Merchant acquirers once relied on independent agents, direct sales, and agent bank relationships to sign up merchants. Now, a new group has entered the picture and is accounting for a rapidly increasing share of new merchant accounts. Value-added resellers and independent software vendors will enroll 15% of all new …
Read More »The DoJ Anoints Gores As the Designated Buyer of Hypercom’s U.S. Assets
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had reached a settlement with point-of-sale terminal makers VeriFone Holdings Inc. and Hypercom Corp. that calls for the sale of Hypercom’s U.S. assets to a unit of private-equity firm Gores Group LLC. The settlement removed an obstacle that held up VeriFone’s …
Read More »Eschewing ‘Participation’ Fees, MasterCard Will Sweet-Talk Debit Issuers One by One
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Read More »Isis Backer Verizon Wireless Agrees to Add AmEx’s Serve to Phones And Tablets
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Read More »Visa Outlines New Fee Structure To Defend Its Debit Business
As Visa Inc. moves into the post Durbin-era, the debit card market leader plans to offer a fixed network participation fee and reduce its variable processing fee for Visa debit products in the United States. Executives expect the new fee structure will make Visa a more viable alternative to competing …
Read More »ACI Announces a $540 Million Bid for S1, Casting a Shadow over S1’s Fundtech Deal
In a surprise development that has the potential to scuttle a merger agreement between payments-software firms S1 Corp. and Fundtech Ltd., ACI Worldwide Inc. on Tuesday announced a cash-and-stock bid valued at $540 million to acquire its Atlanta-based rival S1. If the deal is consummated, it will combine two …
Read More »Rosy Predictions Aside, Mobile Payments Boom Still Years off, Experts Say
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Read More »PayPal’s Slick New NFC-Based P2P Tech Could Be Prelude to POS Play
PayPal Inc. this week demonstrated its slick new person-to-person payments option for Android smart phones equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology. The demo gave birth to a crop of headlines in online tech publications, but the new service may be little more than a prelude to bigger things PayPal …
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