The cybersecurity firm Gemini Advisory recently announced a large-scale data breach at Saks Fifth Avenue and its sister company Lord & Taylor, compromising 5 million credit cards. While the forensic investigation is still under way, it appears that the breach was likely caused by malware on the parent company’s point-of-sale …
Read More »Venmo’s New Debit Card Is About More Than Cashing in on Interchange Fees
While the opportunity to earn interchange on transactions made on its new Venmo debit card seemingly answers the oft-asked question of how PayPal Holdings Inc. plans to leverage its free peer-to-peer payment service, the full answer runs much deeper. Interchange is only one piece of the puzzle. A much larger …
Read More »The Supreme Court’s Controversial Balancing Act in the AmEx Anti-Steering Case
With its Monday decision upholding American Express Co.’s anti-steering rules, the U.S. Supreme Court unleashed a tide of press speculation about just how payment card pricing, rewards, and network rules will be affected. At this point, however, only a few things are clear. The first is that AmEx chief executive …
Read More »Incomm Partners with CheckFreePay and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 6/26/18
Bill.com announced that, at more than $52 billion, it has surpassed the $50-billion mark in bill payments processed annually for more than 3 million small-business clients. Prepaid specialist Incomm announced it is working with CheckFreePay Corp., a unit of Fiserv Inc., on a cash-based bill-payment service in store checkout lanes. …
Read More »A Divided Supreme Court Upholds AmEx’s Anti-Steering Rules
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that American Express Co.’s anti-steering rules for merchants do not violate federal antitrust law. The conservative majority’s decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, caps a case that dates back to 2010 and involves merchants who wanted to steer merchants to …
Read More »A Consumer Survey Yields More Indications That Zelle Is Catching Up to Venmo
Zelle’s gestation as a favored person-to-person payments service may be nearing fulfillment. A new survey from LendEDU finds that, nine months after its June 2017 debut, more consumers had become aware of the bank-backed service. In 2017, only 6.1% had heard of Zelle. By the time of the survey, that …
Read More »Survey Identifies Emerging Anti-Fraud Tools Favored by E-Commerce Merchants
The fraud-fighting tools of the future for e-commerce retailers include artificial intelligence, multimerchant velocity checks, and fingerprint identification, according to a poll of 166 merchants for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. None of those newer tools is in widespread use today, but more merchants plan to use them going …
Read More »Electronic Payments Coalition Says Retailers Should ‘Pull Their Weight’ To Improve Payments
A lobbying group of payment networks and card issuers released consumer survey results Monday that it says show merchants should “step up and catch up” regarding payment card security and innovation. “Time and time again, retailers have shown they are more interested in cutting their own costs instead of making …
Read More »ACH-Based GasBuddy Payment Service Marks 300,000-Plus Users
GasBuddy LLC, the fuel-price comparison service, said Monday more than 300,000 U.S. drivers have enrolled in Pay with GasBuddy, its fuel-discount program that uses the automated clearing house for transactions. Launched last year, Pay with GasBuddy connects a consumer’s checking account with a GasBuddy-issued card. After enrolling in the service …
Read More »Already Ahead of Venmo in Dollars, Zelle Is Poised to Jump Ahead in Users, a Forecaster Says
Now officially a year old, Zelle is steadily gaining momentum. San Francisco-based Bank of the West, the 29th largest bank in the country ranked by assets, announced Thursday it will join the bank-controlled person-to-person payment network, which already claims some of the biggest financial institutions in the country. Also this week, …
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