Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By John Stewart It was bad, but it could have been much worse. Just as the celebrated Cyber Monday online-shopping frenzy was gearing up to full blast, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s payment service, a major processor for e-commerce, began hiccupping. Merchants reported problems with processing orders and customers complained about long …
Read More »Retailers, Restaurants Outpace Other Merchant Types for Awareness of EMV And Liability
Retailers and restaurants have a higher degree of awareness about EMV and its accompanying liability shift than other merchant types, finds the Paychex Small Business Survey, released Tuesday. In the survey of more than 760 small-business owners between Oct. 14 and Oct. 27, 69% of those in retail and restaurants …
Read More »Holiday Mobile Payments Predicted To Grow 47%, With All E-Commerce Up 14%
Powered by growth in mobile payments, so-called digital commerce for 2015’s holiday season will grow 14.3% to $70.1 billion from last season’s $61.3 billion, Internet metrics firm comScore Inc. predicted Wednesday. Reston, Va.-based comScore defines digital commerce to include desktop e-commerce and mobile commerce. The firm predicts desktop e-commerce for …
Read More »Universal Card Provider ScramCard Pegs its Pitch on Mitigating Fraud Risk
Backers of ScramCard, a new universal card that offers consumers the ability to load multiple credit and debit cards onto one card, hope messages touting its potential security and fraud-mitigation benefits will reach welcoming ears. Like other universal cards, ScramCard enables consumers to load their payment card details onto the …
Read More »Holiday Spending May Feature More Debit And Cash. Mobile Payments? Not So Much
By John Stewart The annual holiday-spending frenzy is about to kick off, and if a consumer survey released on Monday is any indication, it will feature a lot more debit card and cash usage and a lot less mobile payment than you might have expected. Some 39% of consumers intend …
Read More »Data About First Data Show Transaction Growth but Profitability Issues Remain
A filing Tuesday by First Data Corp. in the wake of its recent initial public offering of stock paints a picture of a payment processor growing in many areas but still carrying a heavy debt load and challenged on profitability. The filing, Atlanta-based First Data’s quarterly report to the Securities …
Read More »The Double-Edged Sword of Tokenization Helps Issuers But Also Poses a Subtle Threat
By John Stewart The rise of tokenization into a major payments business helps enable enterprises like Apple Pay and Android Pay but could also pose a threat to the financial institutions that have historically issued the majority of the cards consumers use most often. That threat lies in the fact …
Read More »The ABA Says the FBI Was ‘Receptive To Getting It Right’ About PINs and EMV Cards
The American Bankers Association seems to have persuaded the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do something the Bureau rarely ever does, at least in public: change its mind. The FBI’s original position was the consumers should enter a personal identification number whenever possible when using their new EMV chip cards. …
Read More »FBI Notice Warning Consumers To Use PINs With EMV Cards Gone; ABA Protest the Cause?
A public service announcement the FBI posted Thursday warning consumers that the new EMV chip cards “are vulnerable to exploitation by fraudsters” and urging them to enter a PIN instead of a signature during EMV credit card transactions was removed Friday, apparently at the behest of the leading banker trade …
Read More »Why a Regional Bank Is Going With Chip-And-PIN for Its EMV Credit Cards
By Jim Daly They’re few and far between, but another U.S. issuer, regional banking company First Niagara Financial Group Inc., has committed itself to issuing EMV credit cards of the chip-and-PIN variety. Buffalo, N.Y.-based First Niagara announced just before the U.S. EMV liability shift took effect that it will convert …
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