Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
With the effective date for the Check Clearing for the 21st Century (Check 21) Act only 22 days away, few electronic payments observers doubt that the efficiencies of check imaging and image exchange will benefit banks. A lingering question, though, has been how much it will benefit retailers who accept …
Read More »Discover Sues, AmEx-MBNA Get Set in Wake of Supreme Court Decision
Within minutes of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision this morning to let stand a lower court's ruling forcing Visa and MasterCard to allow members to issue cards on the American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services Inc. networks, Discover filed suit against the bank card associations and AmEx announced it …
Read More »PayPal Launches First Campaign to Sign up ‘Off-eBay’ Merchants
PayPal Inc. is in the midst of rolling out its first marketing campaign to sign up non-eBay merchants for its online payment service. Dubbed “PayPal for Business” and aimed at what PayPal considers small and medium-size Internet merchants, the campaign features a telemarketing effort, a direct-mail blast, and a new, …
Read More »MasterCard Pushes SecureCode to Beat the Holiday Rush
MasterCard International expects to bring thousands of new Internet merchants into its SecureCode transaction security program by the middle of next month. The new merchant signings will result from a major push the card network is making for SecureCode among large, well-know online retailers as well as among Web hosting …
Read More »America West Becomes First Airline to Adopt Bill Me Later
America West Airlines, a unit of America West Holdings Corp., has become the first airline to adopt I4 Commerce Inc.'s Bill Me Later Internet payment system. To encourage usage of the new payment option, the Phoenix-based air carrier is offering deferred billing for 90 days or more to qualified customers, …
Read More »Canadian PIN Debit Holders Set to Start Using NYCE POS in the U.S.
An arrangement hammered out last spring between Toronto-based Acxsys Corp. and the NYCE electronic funds network, Montvale, N.J., to allow Canadians holding Interac cards to use their cards at all NYCE-linked merchants in the U.S. will switch on next month. The program, dubbed “Cross Border Debit,” is the first extension …
Read More »Nine EFT Networks Approve a Triple-DES Retrofit for ATMs
Nine electronic funds transfer networks have now approved a $1,600 retrofit kit from a Cincinnati-based ATM refurbisher and servicer for use in ATMs on their systems. The kit, called 3DESPlus, allows ATM owners to upgrade existing machines to make them comply with new security requirements from the bank card companies …
Read More »Pay By Touch: Another Store Signs Up, Along with Discover
Pick 'n Save Metro Market, a supermarket in downtown Milwaukee, today began accepting transactions secured by Pay By Touch, a San Francisco-based company that authenticates payments through digital representations of customers' fingerprints. This development comes shortly after the announcement of a co-marketing agreement between Pay By Touch and Discover Financial …
Read More »FDC: Star Expects to Counter Fiercer Rivalry in EFT Networking
Now that Metavante Corp. has closed on its acquisition of the NYCE electronic funds network and First Data Corp. has put its acquisition and integration of Concord EFS Inc. and its Star Systems network behind it, look for competition among the remaining regional EFT networks to become even more intense, …
Read More »Phishing Attacks Climb 19% in June As Citi Again Tops Target List
The Internet scam known as phishing continued to grow in June, jumping 19% from May to 1,422 unique attacks, according to The Anti-Phishing Working Group, which tracks the fraud. Attacks have increased at an average monthly rate of 52% since the group began keeping statistics last fall. For the third …
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