In the age of electronic payments, cash is getting more and more expensive—even when accessed via electronic means. Nationwide, it costs consumers $4.69 to withdraw money from a so-called out-of-network ATM. That’s up 2.6% from a year ago, according to the latest data from Bankrate Inc., a New York City-based …
Read More »EMV at Two: Consumers Still Think Purchases Are Too Slow; Many Merchants Indifferent
EMV chip card payments at the U.S. point of sale have been around, officially at least, for two years now, but consumers still perceive them as slow, and many merchants still don’t accept chip cards, according to a poll of consumers and retailers by merchant processor Cayan. The time to …
Read More »Operation Choke Point Officially Is Dead, but an ATM Trade Group Believes Its Ghost Lingers
It was just over a month ago that a ranking U.S. Department of Justice official told Congress that Operation Choke Point had ended. But the ATM Industry Association on Wednesday said it is distributing materials to its members to help them deal with the “lingering impact” of the controversial program. …
Read More »Sonic Drive-In Confirms Payment Breach of an Unknown Number of Cards
Add Sonic Drive-In to the roster of merchants that have experienced a breach of their payments systems. The Oklahoma City-based fast-food chain confirmed to Digital Transaction News that it has been investigating the incident. On Tuesday, security blog KrebsOnSecurity.com reported the breach affecting an unknown number of Sonic’s point-of-sale systems. …
Read More »Fraud-Control Expenses and Chargebacks Consume More of Merchants’ Revenues
Fraud-related expenses for merchants are rising as a percentage of revenues, and merchants now spend 10 times as much preventing fraud as they lose to chargebacks, according to new findings from Javelin Strategy & Research. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Javelin says its June study of 497 e-commerce merchants found that merchants in …
Read More »Checks Still Have Life in Them, But Do Banks Hold the Key to Killing Them off?
For years, experts have predicted electronic payments would finally turn the check into an historical artifact. But data released last year indicate that the long-term decline in check volume has slowed, and now experts are trying to figure out why and what the ultimate check-killer will be. When the Federal …
Read More »Gemalto: Records Compromised by Data Breaches Rise 164% in Six Months
Payment-security technology provider Gemalto NV reported Wednesday that, around the world, some 1.9 billion records were compromised by data breaches in 2017’s first half, up 164% from 721 million records compromised in the last six months of 2016. The outlook for 2017’s second half is grim in light of the …
Read More »ThreatMetrix ID Debuts As a Service to Help Businesses Identify Digital Users
Risk-management firm ThreatMetrix Inc. said its ThreatMetrix ID product, announced this week, uses unique, anonymized customer data to help businesses make decisions about trust and identity. The product, hailed as the company’s flagship, incorporates four central capabilities. One is the unique, anonymous data it has on 1.4 billion users in …
Read More »The Debit Card, Long ‘the King of Payments,’ Finds Itself Under Siege, Expert Says
For decades, debit cards have been reliable revenue generators and relationship builders for financial institutions of all sizes. But now that bulwark for banks is under threat from multiple alternatives, putting financial-services executives on the defensive and forcing them to rethink their card strategies, argues a new paper out this …
Read More »Digital Payments Authentication Requires Agility and Adaptability, a Report Says
As more consumers make more digital payments, financial institutions and merchants face an increasingly complex challenge to better authenticate these transactions. That requires looking at ways to keep pace with criminals and staying in step with consumers, says Aite Group LLC in its latest report, “Digital Authentication: New Opportunities to …
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