Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Technology continues to drive change in the way riders on America’s mass-transit systems pay fares. While a few agencies have cast their lot with contactless card systems that also accept general-purpose debit and credit cards with contactless chips, other systems are turning to smart phones as add-ons to existing fare …
Read More »Chicago Test of Mobile Payments for Parking Accelerates Into Massive City Rollout
The private operator of Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters announced Tuesday that drivers will be able to pay with mobile phones at all of the city’s metered street spaces later this summer. The expansion reportedly makes Chicago the biggest market for mobile parking payments in the country and comes just three …
Read More »Eye on Transit: A New Fare System for D.C.; New York Ponders a MetroCard Successor
America’s mass-transit systems in early 2014 are continuing their migration away from proprietary fare systems and toward so-called open-fare systems that can accept general-purpose payment cards as well as mobile payments. This week, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, locally known as Metro, awarded a $184 million, 8-year contract to …
Read More »Insurer Enables Auto Policy Selection and Payment Via its Kiosks
Consumers in Tennessee shopping for car insurance from Direct Auto Insurance have a new option to select a policy and pay for it using the insurer’s Direct on the Spot kiosks. Set up in 18 Direct Auto Insurance locations, the kiosks are designed to broaden the insurer’s reach among …
Read More »Christmas Season Throws Spotlight on a Developing Trend Toward Digital Gift Cards
With Christmas day looming, retailers that issue digital gift cards, along with the vendors that supply them, are expecting a rush of last-minute purchases from shoppers who don’t have time to buy plastic cards. With e-cards flying out to the handsets of recipients at parties and in homes and offices, …
Read More »Apple’s New iPad Could Be Even More Suitable for Payments Than the Old One
The debut on Wednesday of Apple Inc.’s iPad 2 ushers in a thinner, lighter version of a tablet computer that debuted a year ago to considerable fanfare both generally and in the payments business. Like its sister product, the iPhone, the iPad won adoption by some merchants looking for ways …
Read More »As Best Buy Tries Bill-Pay Kiosks, TIO Hopes for Big Expansion
A 35-store deployment at Best Buy Co. Inc., announced late last week, could be the start of a major breakthrough in bill-payment kiosks for TIO Networks Corp. The Vancouver, B.C.-based processor says the machines, which have been live for about four months in a four-market trial in the Atlanta, Las …
Read More »NCR’s Pilot for Movie-Download Kiosks Opens New Transaction Market
A new source of potential payment card transaction volume opened up this week when ATM and kiosk manufacturer NCR Corp. and software provider MOD Systems Inc. announced a pilot in which consumers can download digital movies and TV shows from kiosks. Just as DVDs displaced VHS tapes for movie rentals, …
Read More »Visa’s payWave Platform Connects with the Vending Machine Market
Contactless payments took another incremental step recently when USA Technologies Inc. struck an agreement with Visa Inc. under which Visa will subsidize the deployment of up to 4,000 of USA Technologies' card-accepting devices for vending machines. The agreement, potentially worth $800,000, is significant because it is the first between Visa …
Read More »Cardtronics Looks to Market Its In-House Processing Platform
With its U.S. operations holding up despite the economic slowdown, non-bank ATM network operator Cardtronics Inc. is eyeing opportunities as a third-party ATM processor. Cardtronics executives said at a conference call with analysts on Tuesday morning that the conversion of the network's nearly 33,000 ATMs to a new in-house processing …
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