Some consumers better hope Santa Claus doesn’t read the latest fraud report from Socure, a fraud-prevention and authentication provider. It found 13% of U.S. consumers committed first-party fraud during the 2024 holiday-shopping season. Often called friendly fraud, first-party fraud occurs when a consumer exploits return and refund policies for financial …
Read More »Lightspeed Scanner Debuts and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/14/25
Lightspeed Commerc Inc. launched Lightspeed Scanner, a service that lets sales associates process customers’ card transactions on an iPhone. MagTek said it is working with developer Vault to support Magtek’s DynaFlex II Go technology for mobile point-of-sale applications. Identity-verification specialist AU10TIX said its technology prevented an estimated $7.5 billion in fraud last year worldwide. …
Read More »Checkbook Acquires sureti and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/10/25
Payments platform Checkbook has acquired sureti, a provider of technology for the distribution of insurance payouts. Terms were not announced. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it is asking for comment on implementing existing financial privacy law and how to address what it labeled intrusive data collection and personalized pricing. It also wants comment …
Read More »Affinity FCU Partners With a Payments Fintech to Boost Financial Literacy
Affinity Federal Credit Union is working with fintech Greenlight Financial Technology Inc. to launch a financial-literacy program. The program will provide Affinity members and their families free access to Greenlight’s mobile app and debit card for kids and teens. The app allows parents to manage their child’s spending, send money, …
Read More »PayPal Faces Discrimination Lawsuit and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/6/25
An Asian-American businesswoman named Nisha Desai has sued PayPal Holdings Inc. on grounds of racial discrimination, alleging the company restricted some of a $535-million investment commitment to Black and Hispanic candidates. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asks for unspecified damages and an order …
Read More »WhatsAppPay Rolls Out in India and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/31/24
Meta Platform’s WhatsApp payments service has been permitted by the National Payments Corp. of India, a regulatory body, to roll out WhatsApp Pay to its entire user base of 500 million in that country. Meta formerly was known as Facebook. GasBuddy, which offers a payments card featuring discounts on gasoline, forecasts the …
Read More »Merchants Hit Back at a Banking Group’s Request That the Fed Hold off on Reducing a Debit Interchange Cap
The Merchants Payments Coalition fired back late Monday at a request last week from the American Bankers Association that the Federal Reserve not act on a proposal to lower a longstanding limit on the interchange banks can earn on debit card transactions. In a letter to the Fed, the MPC …
Read More »AI, Interchange, And Open Finance Are the Top Prospective 2025 Payments Trends
The outlook for payments in 2025 will be rife with open finance, instant payments, multi-rail payments, interchange questions, and the increasing use of artificial intelligence, observers suggest. The top three payments trends next year will be open finance, instant payments adoption, and point-of-sale innovations, says Capgemini Research Institute in its …
Read More »Transit System Adopts Mobile Payment Service
Bus riders in Indiana, Pa., can now use smart cards to pay their fares with the debut of the transit system’s IndiGO Mobile Pay. Boston-based Modeshift Inc. designed the fare-collection system in conjunction with the Indiana County Transit Authority. Riders can use a mobile app to find routes, buy tickets …
Read More »Paystone To Acquire Ackroo; MEFA Launches Gift Card program for College Tuition
Ackroo Inc., a Canadian gift card and loyalty platform, announced early Friday it has reached a “definitive” agreement to be acquired by Paystone, a Canadian-based gift card and loyalty processor, in an all-cash deal for $21 million. Paystone will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Ackroo at …
Read More »