Fully 25% of U.S. merchants that accept payment cards experienced a drop of 56% or more in card volume in April compared with February, finds a new study from The Strawhecker Group. After analyzing billions of transactions from more than 1 million card-accepting merchants across the United States, the Omaha, …
Read More »Visa Names Chief Strategy Officer and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/28/20
Visa Inc. appointed Chris Newkirk as chief strategy officer, a newly created position in which he will lead strategic planning for Visa overall and work with Visa’s regional teams. Newkirk, who will report to chairman and CEO Al Kelly, comes to Visa from Capital One Financial Corp., where he held a …
Read More »As Restrictions Lift, Parking Apps Look to Serve Cooped-up Consumers Who Want Touch-Free Payments
Pundits have argued for weeks that the Covid-19 pandemic is shifting consumer payment habits away from anything that requires touching publicly available devices, and now that trend is showing up in that most mundane of activities, parking a car. To be sure, parking transactions even via a mobile app have …
Read More »FIDO Alliance Launches Effort To Make Consumers Aware of Its Authentication Technology
After years of working with Internet firms and payments and tech companies to develop its authentication standards, the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance on Wednesday unveiled a Web site to familiarize consumers with its work and a symbol that indicates a Web site or device is using its technology. The …
Read More »ACI Platform Adds Wallet, Bill Pay APIs and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/26/20
ACI Worldwide Inc. said its real-time payments platform, UP Immediate Payments, has added application programming interfaces to ease integration with mobile wallets, e-commerce portals, bill-pay apps, social-media payments, and other applications.Payments provider Klarna AB said it has an agreement with musical-instrument maker Fender to provide a payment option offering four equal installments on …
Read More »Many Small Businesses Clawing Back From Their Pandemic Lows, New Processor Data Show
A new report from CardFlight Inc., a point-of-sale technology provider serving more than 60,000 small businesses through its SwipeSimple service, shows merchant activity climbing back to just about where it was in early March when the Covid-19 outbreak began to hit the economy hard. Total sales in the SwipeSimple merchant …
Read More »Rising Use of Digital Payments in Canada Is Likely a Permanent Trend, Interac Reports
Some results from Interac Corp. on Friday show the novel coronavirus and its attendant restrictions are pushing Canadian consumers and businesses toward digital payments, a trend the company says could have lasting effects. In April, e-Transfer transactions reached a record level at 61.3 million, according to the announcement from Interac, …
Read More »Citcon Extends Its Reach for China-Based Wallets Via Tulip, a Tech Provider for Luxury Brands
Citcon USA LLC said Tulip Retail Inc., a provider of mobile apps used by store clerks at major retail chains, will deploy Citcon’s mobile-payments technology to enable acceptance of Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay QR. A 5-year-old startup company, Citcon specializes in enabling U.S. merchants to accept China-based mobile-payments apps. …
Read More »Eye on Fraud: Fiserv Targets Debit Card False Declines; More Mobile Payments Mean More Fingerprint Sensors
Debit card issuers have a new tool to spot potential false transaction declines with a new service from processor Fiserv Inc., and the authentication needs of mobile payments are driving, in part, the growth in fingerprint sensors. Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv says its new Authorization Lift service will help reduce the number …
Read More »In a Twist on Contactless, PayPal Rolls Out a QR Code App for Small And Occasional Sellers
In an effort to reach occasional and very small sellers struggling with restrictions imposed to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic, PayPal Holdings Inc. on Tuesday launched a Quick Response code capability for its mobile app. The feature allows a buyer to scan a QR code displayed by a seller …
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