Think of electronic bill payments and, not surprisingly, the Internet usually comes to mind first. But many billers, especially banks, have yet to offer bill payments through telephone-based customer-service systems or automated interactive voice-response units, experts tell Digital Transactions magazine in an upcoming story on expedited bill payments. The Web's …
Read More »Report: M-Gaming Will Top $3 Billion in North America by 2011
Mobile gambling, which doesn't now exist as a market in North America, will grow to $3.34 billion in revenue by 2011, accounting for 14% of a $23.2 billion world market, according to research released this week. Driving this growth, says Juniper Research Ltd., which published the research, are the rapid …
Read More »Yahoo!’s New Pact with eBay Promises More Payments for PayPal
A multi-faceted marketing partnership between giant Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. and PayPal Inc., announced last week, seems likely to drive a significant flow of transaction volume to online auction provider eBay Inc.'s payment service. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! is the No. 2 parent company in terms of visited …
Read More »National City Begins Selling ‘Non-Personalized’ Visa Travel Card
National City Corp., Cleveland, has begun selling a so-called non-personalized version of Visa USA's TravelMoney prepaid card, which replaces traveler's checks. National City, which is the sole major bank issuing either personalized or non-personalized versions of Visa's plastic for travelers, is offering instant issue of the new card, embossed with …
Read More »MobileLime Recruits First ISO in Effort to Sell Merchants Nationally
Seeking to broaden its reach as it rolls out to merchants nationally, Vayusa Inc. has begun to recruit independent sales organizations to sell its MobileLime cell-phone-based loyalty and rewards system. MobileLime, which earlier this year signed its first merchant outside the Northeast, this week announced Vision Payments Solutions LLC, a …
Read More »Online Bill Payments Show Big Gains, But Some Fret over Security
In another indication of the erosion of paper checks in consumer transactions, the volume of bill payments made by check as a fraction of all bill payments has fallen to 37.5% from 61.1% four years ago, according to a report released this week by online bill-payment processor CheckFree Corp. with …
Read More »Survey: Youth Market Not Sold on Mobile Payments, After All
The youth market may not be the slam dunk for mobile payments that payment processors, card issuers, and merchant acquirers have thought it would be. According to survey results released this week, some 62% of persons aged 16 to 43?the so-called Gen X and Gen Y?say that using cell phones …
Read More »First National Merchant Solutions Shifts Toward ISOs for Growth
Long quiet on the reseller front, First National Merchant Solutions is signing up independent sales organizations as part of a strategic shift mapped out by its new president, Diana M. Mehochko. The merchant-acquiring unit of First National Bank of Omaha signed up half a dozen ISOs last year and is …
Read More »Eye on Acquiring: TSYS Rechristens Vital; VeriFone-RBS Lynk Deal
A year after it acquired the 50% interest in Vital Processing Services that it didn't already own, Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) has renamed the merchant-acquiring processor TSYS Acquiring Solutions and announced several new product lines. The Columbus, Ga.-based company, which is known primarily as a processor for card-issuing banks, …
Read More »FastLane Launches Its POS Advertising Program with a $2 Million Deal
Boulder, Colo.-based Combined Payments Inc.'s FastLane, a new network that converts driver's licenses into loyalty and payment cards, Thursday announced that it had secured its first advertiser as part of a point-of-sale program that will share revenues with participating merchants. The $2 million deal involves the La Jolla, Calif., office …
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