When you flip over your debit card or go to an ATM, you see logos for companies like Shazam, First Data’s Star Network and others, but you may not think about the role these processors play in the payments system. As one of those processors, we simplify the connections that …
Read More »A $6.2 Billion Pact May Be Only a Prelude to Difficult Haggling Ahead for Merchants And the Card Networks
Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. announced early Tuesday that they and defendant banks have agreed to settle for $6.24 billion merchants’ monetary claims stemming from 13-year-old litigation over credit card interchange. Today’s announcements represent the second settlement of the sweeping class action known as MDL 1720 pending in U.S. District …
Read More »Debit Card Users Take a Liking to Apple Pay And Other Wallets, Pulse’s Annual Survey Finds
More mobile and contactless opportunities may be in the future for debit card issuers. The 2018 Debit Issuer Study from Houston-based Pulse Network, released this week, found 12.2% of debit cards were enrolled in Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay as of January, up from 6.3% in January 2017. Debit card enrollment …
Read More »Grubhub Closes LevelUp Deal and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 9/14/18
Grubhub, an online and mobile food-ordering marketplace, closed on its previously announced acquisition of LevelUp, a mobile-payments and -promotions platform, for $390 million in cash. Dream Payments, a digital-payments platform provider, released an application programming interface that allows insurers to link to the Dream Payments Hub as well as Mastercard …
Read More »Face-to-Face Debit Fraud Fell 5.5% Last Year As EMV Took Hold, the Latest Pulse Survey Shows
Good news for debit card issuers emerged Thursday as a major report indicated fraud losses fell in 2017 compared to 2016. Losses on point-of-sale transactions totaled an estimated $850 million, down 5.5% from the 2016 total, according to the 2018 Debit Issuer Study from the Houston-based Pulse Network, a unit …
Read More »FreedomPay Scores Lincoln Financial Field Deal and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 9/13/18
FreedomPay, a payments provider specializing in sports stadiums and hospitality venues, announced a multiyear agreement with Lincoln Financial Field, the home stadium for the Philadelphia Eagles, to process payments at more than 300 points of sale. Revenue from so-called over-the-top content-subscription platforms will rise dramatically in part because of streamlined …
Read More »A Financial-Industry Standards Body Releases Rules Aimed at Tightening Mobile Security
Mobile payments are booming in places like China and India, but in the United States, not so much. Year after year, one reason that keeps popping up in surveys is concerns about security, and on Tuesday a major standards body announced a measure aimed squarely at those fears. The Accredited …
Read More »Eye on Data Breaches: British Airways Reports Hack; Survey Finds 21% of Equifax Victims Noticed ‘Unusual’ Financial Activity
Some 380,000 payment cards used by British Airways customers have been compromised in a data breach, and more than one in five consumers surveyed about last year’s massive breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. reported “unusual activity” in its wake, including new account openings. British Airways, one of Europe’s largest …
Read More »Data Breaches Register on the Stock Market, Too, And Payments Firms Are Hardest Hit
Data breaches bring a slew of bad consequences for the victim, not the least of which are the costs of lost business, remediation, and, possibly, litigation. But for publicly held entities, there’s an additional risk: a lasting hit to the share price. For 24 companies whose shares are traded on …
Read More »PayPal Still Reigns in Digital Wallets While Apple Pay Gains and Samsung Pay and Google Pay Diverge
PayPal remains by far the most popular digital wallet with U.S. consumers, but Apple Pay has gained the most since 2017’s third quarter, according to recent findings from technology research firm 451 Research. New York City-based 451’s Voice of the Connected Consumer survey asks consumers about their usage of 15 …
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