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If the flow of recessionary credit card spending could be likened to the Niagara River, MasterCard Inc. has gone over the falls while Visa is still just upstream at Grand Island. MasterCard on Thursday reported fourth-quarter drops of nearly 10% in U.S. credit card purchase volume and more than 6% …
Read More »Heartland’s Carr Calls for End-to-End Encryption To Stop Breaches
Nearly one week after news emerged of the big data breach at Princeton, N.J.-based merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc., it remains unclear how much damage actually happened and who did it. One report suggests Heartland's breach-related legal liabilities could approach $98 million, an estimate a Heartland spokesperson dismisses as …
Read More »Banks’ Card Reissuance Indicates Probable Scope of Heartland Breach
As merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and federal investigators continue to probe the data breach Heartland disclosed on Tuesday, evidence is building that banks and credit unions around the country are reissuing cards on a mass scale as a likely result of the breach. That could give credence to …
Read More »That Sucking Sound Is the Downdraft in Big Banks’ Charge Volumes
The latest credit card charge-volume figures from the nation's top three banks show big declines, portending weak results when other issuers, merchant acquirers, and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. report their fourth-quarter earnings in coming days. On Friday, Bank of America Corp. reported fourth-quarter purchase volume of $56.6 billion on …
Read More »Maverick Launches with Merchant-Issued Debit Cards, Prepaid Cards
Processors' experimentation with debit cards is taking on even more variety with the entry of Wilmington, Del.-based startup Maverick Network Solutions Inc. into the market. Maverick, which has brought together a handful of long-time payment-industry executives and received $1.5 million in venture funding in December, expects to begin a pilot …
Read More »Online Holiday Sales Track with Last Year, But Average Tickets Drop
Despite a sputtering economy, online merchants overall are breaking even with last year in terms of holiday sales, and the largest e-commerce sellers are running slightly ahead, according to statistics released this week. Web-based sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 19 totaled $24.03 billion, a 1% decline from the equivalent …
Read More »An AmEx-Delta Cobrand Deal Carries Acquiring, Debit Implications
An extended cobranded credit card pact between Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Express Co., announced on Tuesday, also has merchant-acquiring and debit card implications, and it provides further evidence of how airlines in a weak economy can raise cash from their issuing and acquiring partners. AmEx, issuer of Atlanta-based …
Read More »Eyeing Debit, Visa Posts Its Canadian Interchange Rates on the Web
In another sign of sweeping changes in the Canadian payment card market, Visa Inc.'s Visa Canada unit last week published interchange rates on its Web site for the first time. The posting comes at a time when merchants are complaining about higher rewards-card acceptance costs and expressing fears that possible …
Read More »Why NYCE Plans To Test Two Online PIN Debit Systems in Parallel
The NYCE electronic funds transfer network, which last month said it will pilot PINless purchase transactions online, has become the second EFT system to agree to test Web-based debit card transactions secured by PINs. While Steven A. Rathgaber, president and chief operating officer at Secaucus, N.J.-based NYCE, says many of …
Read More »Deal with TRM Unit Gives Select-A-Branch Access to National Market
Select-A-Branch ATM Network LLC, the startup that offers electronic multibank branding on its ATMs, is about to bust out of the Northeast thanks to a new pact with TRM Corp.'s Access To Money network. The exclusive distribution agreement-in-principle deal would give Select-A-Branch potential access to about 3,000 ATMs in convenience …
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