Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Online sellers trying to sort out the plethora of alternative-payments choices?and make decisions regarding which, if any, to accept?should begin by asking questions about what business problems they are trying to solve, a retail executive said at an e-commerce trade show on Wednesday. “Once you understand what problem you're trying …
Read More »Study: POS Debit Rises, While Consumers Confirm PIN Preference
The use of debit cards for point-of-sale purchases is rising sharply, while cardholders continue to prefer PIN debit over signature debit, according to a study released recently by the Star electronic funds transfer network, a unit of Denver-based First Data Corp. The study is the latest in a series of …
Read More »Survey Finds Low Prepaid Market Penetration Among Underbanked
Despite lots of headlines, prepaid cards account for only a small share of payments by underbanked consumers, according to results of a survey released Monday by The Center for Financial Services Innovation, a non-profit affiliate of Chicago-based ShoreBank Corp. The national survey of 2,799 adults age 18 and older and …
Read More »Security Fears Remain a High Hurdle for New Payments Technologies
Technology's great, but new payments platforms and systems will have to overcome consumers' security fears even if banks, processors, and technology vendors think such fears are overblown. That was one of the messages from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's 2008 Payments Conference on Friday, a conference specifically devoted to …
Read More »Indiana Bank’s Debit Card Breach Underscores Issuer Vulnerability
South Bend, Ind.-based 1st Source Bank is reissuing its entire portfolio of debit cards after a hacker or hackers broke into a bank server containing debit card data. No fraud has been discovered as a result of the intrusion, a bank executive tells Digital Transactions News. The $4.5-billion-asset bank with …
Read More »Robust for Years, Debit Growth Expected to Weaken, Study Says
Perhaps the hottest payment product going for the past several years, debit cards are showing signs of cooling off. “It's almost become a broken record that debit transactions are growing at double-digit rates, but we're seeing a slowing in that rate,” Tony Hayes, a partner at research and consulting firm …
Read More »A Renewed Effort at ACH-Based Driver’s Licenses Maps Its Plans
A veteran of previous efforts to turn driver's licenses into payment cards is working with the operator of an online consumer-loyalty network on a plan intended to introduce automated clearing house transactions tied to shoppers' driver's licenses at brick-and-mortar stores by 2009. Linda Bryant, who has formed a processor called …
Read More »How Phishing Threatens Banks’ Efforts to Rely More on E-Mail
Only one-fifth of financial institutions are using technologies that can authenticate e-mail messages, even though phishing attacks disproportionately affect banks and even though banks say they plan to rely more heavily on the e-mail channel to reach customers, a new research report says. Meanwhile, phishing attacks are not only increasing, …
Read More »Green Appeals Effective in Recruiting e-Bill Users, Research Shows
Green, as in save the environment, and green, as in cash, can be two effective appeals financial institutions can use to persuade consumers to pay bills electronically through bank Web sites, though banks should be especially careful about cash incentives, researchers claim. And the security worries consumers express about electronic …
Read More »Visa Filing Confirms Heavy Investment in Merchant And Issuer Incentives
Recent research by Aite Group LLC estimated the Visa and MasterCard bank card networks paid nearly $5 billion to merchants and card issuers between 2005 and 2007 to spur acceptance or issuance of their respective brands (Digital Transactions News, Feb. 20). Visa Inc.'s latest registration statement, filed Monday in advance …
Read More »