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An absence of incentives?particularly for merchants?is handicapping contactless payments in the U.S., and by extension mobile payment at the point of sale could suffer, according to a new report. About 40,000 U.S. merchants now accept contactless cards and fobs, or 0.5% of all merchant locations. That number will grow to …
Read More »San Francisco NFC Pilot Tests Rewards As Well As Payments
A test of contactless payment via mobile phones, launched this week in San Francisco, relies on near-field communication (NFC) technology not only to handle transactions but also to manage consumer rewards. It differs from past NFC pilots in the U.S. in another way: It doesn't rely on either the MasterCard …
Read More »Phishing Sites Proliferate, But Experts Say Help Is on the Way
The population of Web sites dedicated to the crime of phishing jumped markedly in October after dipping late in the summer, according to the latest data from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The good news, though, is that experts appear to be working out a new way to shut down these …
Read More »A Pared-Down Pay By Touch Takes Bids for ‘Non-Core’ Units
Biometric-authentication and loyalty-services technology provider Pay By Touch is in bankruptcy, has cut costs drastically, and is shopping some of its subsidiaries, but the company's former chief executive–who is now a member of the firm's newly constituted board of directors–says Pay By Touch is solid at its core. “This company …
Read More »Online Sales Surge During a Lukewarm ’07 Holiday Shopping Season
While holiday-season shopping activity overall for 2007 may have seen only a lukewarm increase compared to last year, purchases online surged ahead, reaching their peak a week before Christmas. On Dec. 18, online sales for 10 of the 30 largest e-commerce merchants hit $169 million on more than 3 million …
Read More »Survey: Consumers Lost $3.2 Billion to Phishing Attacks in 2007
Some 3.6 million U.S. adults were victims of phishing attacks in the 12 months ending in August, losing an average of $886 apiece for an estimated total of $3.2 billion, according to a survey of more than 4,500 online users sponsored by Gartner Inc. Gartner, a technology research firm based …
Read More »E-Commerce Sales Continue to Rack up Double-Digit Gains
Retailers and analysts have been giving forecasts ranging from ho-hum to downright pessimistic for the upcoming holiday spending period, but the outlook for online retailers almost certainly is better. Growth rates in electronic-commerce remain near 20%, the U.S. Commerce Dept.'s Census Bureau reported on Monday. The Census Bureau's quarterly report …
Read More »Retailers Must Do More To Tout Tap-And-Go, Expert Argues
Lack of consumer awareness regarding contactless transaction technology ranks as a leading concern among retailers and may ultimately impede development of contactless payments based on mobile phones, research released this week indicates. Yet most merchants that have adopted contactless programs don't promote those programs to their customers, according to the …
Read More »Phishing Takes a Break As Attacks, Hosting Sites Slip in July
The crime of phishing entered midsummer doldrums, offering some relief to financial institutions, merchants, and other organizations engaged in e-commerce, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The number of unique e-mail attacks dropped 17%, to 23,917, in July, while the population of sites launching attacks dipped …
Read More »By Arming Consumers, a Startup Hopes to Cut Down on ID Fraud
In a sign of how the problem of identity fraud is spawning new businesses, a La Jolla, Calif.-based startup announced on Tuesday a free service allowing consumers to determine which pieces of junk mail they want to stop receiving. Once consumers use ProQuo Inc.'s Web site to indicate their preferences?which …
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