Debit Cards

While electronic payment methods continue to gain ground against paper-based payments, consumers show widely varying attitudes toward specific types of electronic methods, according to a recently released report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The paper, which the Boston Fed published last month and is based on a representative …

MasterCard Inc. is changing a controversial policy, and pushing back a deadline, that it announced only six months ago regarding enforcement of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard. With the changes, which involve assessing computer systems for PCI compliance, MasterCard could be viewed as responding to valid complaints after first …

With two settlements announced in less than a week, merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is putting some of the legal repercussions of its huge data breach behind it as 2009 draws to a close. But most of the legal troubles Heartland faces in the wake of the breach it …

The Accel/Exchange electronic funds transfer network, which on Nov. 9 became the first EFT network to roll out online PIN debit to consumers, is pleased with results so far and has plans to begin a major recruitment drive to sign up merchant acquirers for the program next year, says Michael …

Consumers have cut back their usage of credit cards in the past year, often on their own volition but also because suddenly risk-averse credit card issuers have closed millions of credit card accounts or reduced credit lines in their attempts to strengthen recession-racked balance sheets. Now the emerging question is …

Christmas cheer for merchants and transaction processors came a little early this week with the news that both transaction volumes and dollar sales from cards for at least one major processor are finally trending up, yielding a scant but welcome uptick in average tickets. Even more encouraging: the increases came …

Credit card charge volumes have fallen this year and debit card volumes, while still in positive territory, are running far below the growth rates they enjoyed before the recession hit. But prepaid cards remain the one bright spot, according to a new market analysis from Mercator Advisory Group Inc. Maynard, …

U.S. financial institutions have made considerable progress in fighting identity fraud, but still lag in their use of one of the most potent weapons in their arsenal: putting anti-fraud controls in the hands of the consumer. That's according to research released on Tuesday by Javelin Strategy & Research. The Pleasanton, …

It often seems impossible to thwart online fraudsters, but e-commerce merchants made headway in the past year, according to CyberSource Corp.'s 11th annual study of e-commerce fraud. For the first time in four years, U.S. and Canadian merchants reported a decline in the average percentage of online revenues lost to …

A new source of potential payment card transaction volume opened up this week when ATM and kiosk manufacturer NCR Corp. and software provider MOD Systems Inc. announced a pilot in which consumers can download digital movies and TV shows from kiosks. Just as DVDs displaced VHS tapes for movie rentals, …