As the Federal Reserve embarks upon its journey to becoming a real-time payments provider with its planned FedNow service, Mastercard Inc. on Tuesday announced the biggest acquisition in its history, one the network says will strengthen its real-time, bill-payment, and related services. Mastercard said it has a deal to buy …
Read More »Apple Card in Limited Release and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/6/19
Apple Inc. made its upcoming Apple Card available to the public on a limited basis. The full rollout of the card—which was unveiled in March, is issued by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and runs on the Mastercard network—is expected later in the month.Automated clearing house network administrator Nacha said it is “committed to working cooperatively …
Read More »Will It Or Won’t It? The Fed May Announce Its Decision on Real-Time Payments Monday
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce Monday whether it will enter the business of real-time payments as an operator competing with existing private-sector players. A so-called public option from the national banking regulator could please retailers and small financial institutions concerned about whether the nascent real-time payments market …
Read More »Clark Adds ControlScan Services and other Digital Transactions New briefs from 8/5/19
ControlScan expanded its agreement with Clark Brands LLC to offer managed firewall and PCI-compliance services to the petroleum retailer.Installment-payments specialist Klarna, which has processed payments for fashion retailer ASOS in the United Kingdom, extended that relationship to the U.S. market, the companies said.In related news, installment-payment processor Splitit said a survey of more than …
Read More »Risks in Credit-Push Transactions Lurk as Faster-Payment Systems Grow
With faster-payment services growing in the U.S. and the Federal Reserve expected to announce Monday whether it will assume a direct operating role in a real-time gross settlement system, banks and payment processors have not yet considered all the risks associated with the new services, according to a new report. …
Read More »Cardless Transactions Are Driving Debit Growth, A Trend Fraudsters Have Noted
Consumers are making more debit card transactions without the physical card, and fraudsters are taking notice, according to a major study released Thursday. Transactions such as e-commerce payments, push payments, and peer-to-peer transfers using the accounts backing debit cards, but not the plastic itself, are rising dramatically, according to the …
Read More »Warning About Online Skimming and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/1/19
The PCI Security Standards Council and Retail & Hospitality ISAC issued a joint bulletin about a growing threat to e-commerce Web sites that the cybersecurity organizations say requires “urgent awareness and attention.” The threat, sometimes dubbed Magecart, involves sites infected with difficult-to-detect malware that skims payment card information during a transaction without …
Read More »Financial-Services Firms Find Favor Among Phishers
A new report about online security finds that 50% of phishing domains that researchers tracked mimicked the Web sites of financial-services companies. The findings come from the “State of the Internet/Security” report released Wednesday by Cambridge, Mass.-based Web-services provider Akamai Technologies. Forever a favorite of criminals, banks and other financial …
Read More »FIS-Worldpay Deal Closes and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/31/19
Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said it has closed on its $43-billion cash-and-stock acquisition of processor Worldpay Inc. The deal was announced in March. Wednesday’s announcement follows approval of the merger by Worldpay shareholders last week and by the Federal Trade Commission in April.Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook reported the Apple Pay mobile-payments service is now completing nearly …
Read More »Visa and Kroger Settle Debit-Routing Lawsuit, but Partial Credit Card Boycott Continues
The Kroger Co. and Visa Inc. have settled a 2016 federal lawsuit in which Kroger alleged Visa interfered with its transaction-routing plans for EMV debit cards, Digital Transactions News has learned. In a separate dispute, however, the leading stand-alone supermarket chain is still boycotting Visa credit cards in some of …
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