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In another move by a financial-accounting software company into payment processing, Sage Group PLC is acquiring Verus Financial Management Inc., a privately held independent sales organization, for $325 million in cash. Based in the U.K., Sage markets software used by small businesses to manage finances. Nashville, Tenn.-based Verus provides card …
Read More »Visa Reports $257 Billion for ’05 Holiday Season, with a Dec. 23 Peak
In its final holiday-spending report for the season, Visa USA said today retail spending on its cards hit $257 billion for November and December 2005, up 17.5% from the same period in 2004. Visa says e-commerce activity for the holiday-shopping season totaled $26.5 billion, peaking at $624 million on Dec. …
Read More »Nokia Says Look for New Phone, Busy Stores in ’06 NFC Payment Pilots
Projected pilots in 2006 for contactless payment capability on mobile phones with near-field communication (NFC) technology will include high-throughput retail stores, in contrast to the self-contained environment of a sports stadium, where the first such trial began last week (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 14). Tom Zalewski, head of mobile payment …
Read More »Holiday Card Spending Ramps up in Stores And on the Internet
The week ended Dec. 18 included three of the four heaviest spending days of the holiday shopping season so far, according to the latest report from Visa USA. Spending on Visa-branded cards totaled $5.2 billion on Dec. 16, ranking that day the busiest of the season. Black Friday, the day …
Read More »In a Busy Day, BofA Says Yes to AmEx Network And No to TSYS
Bank of America Corp. announced today it will begin issuing cards on American Express Co.'s U.S. merchant network and also confirmed that an existing issuing relationship between AmEx and MBNA Corp., which BofA is acquiring for $35 billion, will continue. In a separate announcement, third-party credit card account processor TSYS …
Read More »Citi Will Begin Issuing Credit Cards on AmEx’s Network By Month’s End
In a move that has been expected for more than a year, Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank unit announced today it will begin issuing cards on the American Express Co. network by the end of the month. The full offering, which includes five cards with varying benefits, will be available by mid-January. …
Read More »Digital Defense Group Set to Launch a Fingerprint-Secured RFID Card
An Omaha, Neb.-based maker of biometrically secured identity cards says it expects to participate in contactless-payment pilots within three months, with a commercial rollout possible by mid-2006. Five-year-old Digital Defense Group says its credit-card-size token, which contains a fingerprint sensor and an RFID chip, is compliant with MasterCard International's PayPass …
Read More »Velocita, TNS, Pepsi Aim at Profits Via Wireless-Vending Payments
At $18 billion in annual sales, vending machines represent the biggest cash market in the country, and now card processors, networks, and wireless operators have it in their cross-hairs. The latest initiative involves a three-way venture in which Velocita Wireless LP, a a data-network spin-off of Cingular Wireless LLC, is …
Read More »Survey: Interest in Micropayments Rising Fast Among Consumers
The willingness of U.S. consumers to use credit or debit cards to buy things like cups of coffee or cans of soda is rising fast, according to a survey being released this week at a conference in New York on micropayments, or transactions for less than $5. Some 21% of …
Read More »Back at First Data’s Helm, Duques Faces Major Growth Challenges
The new chief executive of First Data Corp. is likely to bring renewed focus to the processing giant's merchant-acquiring business and move quickly to resolve the drag on growth represented by the company's processing business that supports card issuers, say industry observers. At the same time, Henry C. (Ric) Duques, …
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