Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Continuing its massive clean-up in the wake of the payment card industry’s biggest data breach, merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. late on Wednesday announced a $41.4 million settlement with MasterCard Inc. The settlement will reimburse MasterCard debit and credit card issuers for their costs stemming from the breach Heartland …
Read More »Volume Perks up for Heartland, While Breach Costs Exceed $100 Million
Reflecting recent trends noted by the payment card networks, merchant processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc. reported on Thursday that it is beginning to see a turnaround in charge volume at merchants battered for the past two years by the retrenchment in consumer spending. Heartland also disclosed that it has expensed …
Read More »Even Vendors See a Far-off Horizon for End-to-End Encryption
End-to-end encryption of payment card data is all the rage among vendors to the merchant-acquiring industry, but vendors themselves believe it will take a long time for merchants to begin using their new technology. Asked how long they believe it will take for the majority of U.S. card-accepting merchants to …
Read More »The Senate Attaches Interchange Regs to Financial-Reform Bill
The battle over interchange regulation continues to heat up, with the introduction this week of amendments to financial regulatory reform legislation pending in the U.S. Senate that would target the controversial fees charged to merchants. The three amendments, sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and co-sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, …
Read More »MasterCard Spots Signs of a Turnaround in Cardholder Spending
Despite what MasterCard Inc. executives labeled a “strong quarter” of earnings, U.S. credit card purchase volumes continued to fall in the three months ending March 31. In addition, MasterCard’s debit card count dropped by 1.6% even though debit transaction volumes grew.But signs of both an “underlying momentum of our business …
Read More »MasterCard Aims for Faster Authorizations, More Message Data
While Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are shelling out big bucks for the loyalties of card issuers and merchants (Digital Transactions News, April 29), they’re also adding technological muscle to attract more transaction volume to their networks. In the latest example, MasterCard on Monday announced a host of upgrades to …
Read More »A Bundled Approach to PCI Compliance for Small Merchants
As smaller merchants struggle with data-security requirements set by the bank card networks, some security firms are working on ways to simplify compliance. An example is Panoptic Security Inc., a Salt Lake City, Utah-based company that distributes its software through independent sales organizations and acquiring banks. It has started talking …
Read More »Eye on E-Commerce: Acculynk Courts ISOs; eBillme’s Walk-in Survey
Acculynk Inc., a processor of PIN debit transactions that take place on merchant Web sites, announced this week it is adding the capability of processing credit and signature-debit transactions as well. The new service, called PaySecure Plus, will rely on processor Elavon, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, to handle credit …
Read More »ISOs Lukewarm About Sponsor Banks, Other Vendors, Survey Finds
More than a fifth of independent sales organizations claim to be ready to change their sponsor merchant-acquiring bank, according to a new Aite Group LLC report about ISOs' relationships with their vendors. A smaller but still substantial number also are likely to change some of their other vendors. From July …
Read More »After a Dip in ’09, Prepaid Card Usage Is Back on the Rise, Expert Says
Consumer usage of prepaid and gift cards declined last year, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin estimates that the percentage of U.S. adults who had used a prepaid or gift card in the preceding 12 months fell from 66% in 2008 to 61% in 2009. …
Read More »