Marketing

Although some issuers and processors have soured on so-called single-use or proxy numbers for secure Internet transactions, Discover Financial Services Inc. has just rolled out an advanced version of its own single-use system and plans very soon to begin a major marketing campaign for it. The most significant feature of …

Visa U.S.A.'s consumer authentication system for Internet transactions, Verified by Visa, will see its merchant base expand by 50% in the next few days as online-shopping aggregator 2checkout.com switches on 10,000 Web retailers for the service. It's a significant lift for VbyV, and represents the first fruits of a new …

A Boston-based mobile-transaction processor that has signed up a local taxicab company and a number of other merchants is hoping this week's Democratic National Convention will help propel the fledgling service into national prominence. Vayusa Inc., which offers the cell-phone-based service under the name MobileLime, has recruited 50 merchant locations …

Worldwide discount-fee income jumped 18% for American Express Co. on sharply higher cardholder spending in the second quarter, though the card network's average discount rate drifted slightly downward. The company's U.S. card billings hit $75.7 billion in the quarter, a 17% increase over the year-ago period. Even faster card spending …

Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., a Charleston, S.C.-based supermarket chain, today switched on an in-lane biometric payment system in four stores on the way to a planned rollout of the fingerprint authentication system to all 116 stores in the chain. The system, from San Francisco-based Pay By Touch, allows customers to …

New processing technologies for so-called micropayments–transactions carrying a value under $5–have received a lot of attention in recent months as the number of sellers of online digital content expands and as the market for song downloads explodes, but some observers now question how far the market can grow. Startups like …

Visa U.S.A. reported today that the dollar volume of transactions occurring on its cards on the Internet through the first five months of 2004 is running ahead of the gain seen in calendar 2003. Through May 31, Visa's e-commerce volume on credit and debit cards jumped 59% over the year-ago …

A new trade group formed to fight phishing fraud argues it will work on approaches to the problem that will distinguish it from the efforts of another organization that emerged last year to combat the online fraud. The Trusted Electronic Communications Forum, whose formation was announced this week, is aimed …

Even though transactions from outside North America account for anywhere from 10% to 20% of sales for Web sites that accept international business, only 59% of large and mid-sized online merchants take orders from international customers. That's the main conclusion of a recent e-commerce payment survey sponsored by CyberSource Corp., …

The criminal activity known as phishing soared to new heights last month, according to statistics released today by the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The consortium of Internet companies and law-enforcement agencies reported that the number of unique phishing incidents recorded by the group rose 180% to 1,125 in April, more than …