Marketing

The number of Visa- and MasterCard-branded money-transfer cards issued in the U.S. will reach 1.1 million in 2006, up from 400,000 this year and just 145,000 in 2004, according to a new research study on the remittance market. The jump in the number of the prepaid cards follows the increasing …

A simmering patent feud between rival biometric transaction processors BioPay LLC and Pay By Touch has taken another twist with Pay By Touch's acquisition of a patent covering check-cashing services, BioPay's core business. In a news release it issued last week, Pay By Touch claimed its competitor had tried to …

A majority of consumers who routinely pay their bills with checks are familiar with the process of accounts receivable conversion, or ARC, and better than half express no objection to the process, according to a survey conducted for the National Automated Clearing House Association, Herndon, Va. ARC is a relatively …

Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co.'s decision to roll out a biometric payment system to all 85 stores in its chain was driven by both transaction-cost savings and customer interest, a senior executive for the Charleston, S.C.-based grocer says. In related news, Pay By Touch, the San Francisco-based company whose system Piggly …

CyberSource Corp. predicts that the increase in holiday spending online will be about equal with the rise in volume seen during the same time in 2003, disputing the estimates of some observers that e-commerce traffic growth will be lower this year. Growth last year in the fourth quarter was 25% …

Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store has announced it is accepting PayPal in the U.S. for payment of song downloads, audiobooks, and gift certificates, effective today. The development represents a major breakthrough for the San Jose, Calif.-based payments unit of eBay Inc. and comes a year after the company slashed …

Visa USA announced it is now offering chargeback rights to consumers holding its Interlink PIN debit card. The bank card network sees the extension of chargeback protection to PIN debit as a response to consumer expectation and a competitive edge for Interlink issuers. “As debit usage continues to grow, consumers …

Recent survey statistics document a continuing rise in both phishing sites and attacks, and underline the toll such security problems are taking on consumer confidence when conducting online transactions. In its latest report, the Anti-Phishing Working Group says the number of unique Web sites engaged in phishing fraud jumped to …

VeriSign Inc. says heavy promotion it's putting behind its new trust mark for e-commerce will drive the number of payment-gateway client sites displaying the mark from 40,000 currently to more than 70,000 by year's end. And it expects that number to double by the end of 2005. The Mountain View, …

The fledgling networks that traffic electronic check images rather than paper checks are looking for bigger volumes now that the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, popularly known as Check 21, has finally become law. “Now everyone's jumping on the bandwagon,” says Mark Craig, general manager of Endpoint Exchange, …