Nearly two years after introducing a same-day bill-payment service, Metavante Corp. reported on Tuesday its client financial institutions are seeing a 10% adoption rate among active online bill payers on average after 19 months of offering the product. The average rate after nine months is approximately 5%, the Milwaukee-based banking …
Read More »Mazooma Launches As Consumers Seek out Alternatives to Credit
A downward-spiraling economy is accelerating what had already been a rapidly developing trend for startups to introduce online payment methods as alternatives to bank cards. Indeed, one such company, Miami-based Mazooma Inc., launched a cash-based commercial service on Tuesday with the premise that consumers are looking for ways to buy …
Read More »Fraudsters Run One-Stop Shop Online to Sell Data-Stealing Code
Fraudsters are running an online trading post for highly sophisticated code that allows criminals to more easily steal consumers' log-on credentials, Social Security Numbers, PINs, and other confidential information, according to the latest report from RSA Security Inc.'s Anti-Fraud Command Center. The fraudster Web site, which RSA analysts call a …
Read More »Schools And State Agencies Eye NACHA’s Online Payment System
Secure Vault Payments, the online payment system that NACHA has been piloting since last spring, is catching on as a bill-payment alternative among colleges and state agencies, says Kendall Myles, the executive who is heading up SVP merchant recruitment for NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network. …
Read More »MoneyGram May Struggle for Traffic on Vcoms, Expert Warns
MoneyGram International Inc.'s deal with Cardtronics Inc. to process remittances and bill payments on more than 2,000 sophisticated kiosks Cardtronics operates in 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores may extend MoneyGram's reach, but at least one observer questions whether the service will get the traffic the Minneapolis-based money-transfer company is expecting. “I …
Read More »Downturn’s Headwinds Slow Western Union’s Bill-Pay Business
The Western Union Co. has found out that worsening economic conditions in the United States can take a toll on seemingly sure-fire high-growth products like electronic bill payments. Western Union's third-quarter earnings report out on Tuesday shows that consumer-to-business, or bill-pay, revenues and operating income are down 2% and 10% …
Read More »Western Union’s Expedited Offering Nears the Starting Gate
It's been a year since wire-transfer market leader The Western Union Co. announced that it would introduce an expedited bill-payment service with technology provider Yodlee Inc. that banks and credit unions could offer their customers (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 10, 2007). With the operational work nearing completion, the first financial …
Read More »Study Shows Growth for E-Payments, But Paper Lurks Under the Hood
Many studies have documented the rise of card, automated clearing house, and other forms of electronic payments, but a new one from Hitachi Consulting and the Bank Administration Institute sheds some light on just how consumers divide their payments behavior. According to the nationwide study of 3,308 consumers who completed …
Read More »An ACH-Based Bill-Pay Pilot Promises Fee Income to Banks
An electronic bill-presentment and ?payment system that uses the automated clearing house network picked up some momentum recently with the addition of a second participating bank to its pilot program and could gain more as processors serving thousands of banks start linking to the system. Dollar Bank, a Pittsburgh-based thrift, …
Read More »PDFs Offer Promising New Opportunity for Online Fraudsters
The rising popularity of so-called rich-content files is providing cybercriminals a fertile opportunity to spread malicious software that lets them steal passwords, PINs, and other sensitive information on the Internet, according to a report released on Tuesday. Whereas before viruses, Trojans, and other such malware tended to be found on …
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