Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
PayNearMe Inc. on Wednesday announced the launch of a payment system that lets unbanked consumers pay for goods online or over the phone with cash. The system, which relies on real-time links to point-of-sale terminals in 6,000 U.S. 7-Eleven stores to collect and record cash transactions, has attracted eight announced …
Read More »In a First, eBay Permits Gateways Besides PayPal
When eBay Inc. late last month announced it will no longer allow so-called third-party checkout services after June 30, 2011, the San Jose, Calif.-based online auctioneer’s policy shift attracted plenty of attention. Less noted was a decision, announced at the same time, to allow payment gateways other than PayPal to …
Read More »Visa Hopes RightCliq Adds the Right Value for Online Payments
Visa Inc. sees its new RightCliq shopping service as a means by which it can control more e-commerce transaction volume. But it might also represent a tactic by which it can add value to payments at a time when payment processing is increasingly perceived by merchants and consumers as a …
Read More »Acculynk Scores Again, This Time with Its MasterCard Pact
Just two weeks after announcing its biggest EFT network partnership with the Discover Financial Service-owned Pulse network, online PIN-debit technology provider Acculynk Inc. landed an even bigger fish. Under a deal announced Wednesday, MasterCard Inc.’s approximately 8,500 U.S. Debit MasterCard issuers will have the option of offering Acculynk’s PaySecure service …
Read More »PayPal Sees Transaction Growth Level off in the Latest Quarter
The nation’s sluggish recovery from a long and deep recession kept second-quarter transaction volume static for e-commerce processor PayPal Inc., according to statistics released this week by PayPal’s parent company, online auctioneer eBay Inc. While PayPal added nearly 3 million active accounts in the period to reach 87.2 million, the …
Read More »A Social Media Paradox: Sites Are Popular, But Users Aren’t Happy
While social media sites are wildly popular with consumers, it turns out those same users give the sites low scores for satisfaction, ranking the category above only airlines and cable and satellite TV providers, according to a report released on Tuesday. Still, that dissatisfaction is unlikely to affect payments processors …
Read More »A Social Media, P2P, And Micropayments Mashup Emerges from First Data
It’s social payments, person-to-person payments, and micropayments all in one. And it’s sweet too. That’s the essence of a new electronic-gift service dubbed “eGift Social” that payment processor First Data Corp. launched recently with ice cream purveyor Cold Stone Creamery as its first client. Cold Stone, a unit of Scottsdale, …
Read More »Pulse Makes Web-Based PIN Debit a Commercial Service
The concept of allowing consumers to use debit cards with PINs to make purchases on the Web took a big step forward on Wednesday with the Pulse electronic funds transfer network’s announcement that it is rolling out an online PIN-debit service. With some 4,400 member financial institutions, Houston-based Pulse, which …
Read More »Online Game, Social Network Sites Confront Unique Fraud Challenges
Most of the public attention on online fraud centers on traditional merchants seeking to identify fraudulent orders, detect and prevent data breaches, and the like. But fraud also is a major concern for the online-game publishers and social networks that operate exclusively in the virtual world. Because of the unique …
Read More »A Banker’s Nightmare: Social Networks Beget a Slew of PayPals
Non-bank threats to banking franchises like electronic payments are nothing new, but if a researcher is correct, banks and the card networks they built could soon find themselves under assault from a whole new batch of players that have found a niche in social networks and online gaming. “I don’t …
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