The controversial Libra cryptocurrency project gained a new member Friday with Shopify Inc.’s announcement it will join the Libra Association, the governing body for the fledgling venture. Shopify’s decision comes in the face of a string of eight high-profile defections from the association since October, including decisions by Mastercard Inc., …
Read More »Western States Names Officers and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/21/20
The Western States Acquirers Association announced Jason Putnam, a TIB-The Independent BankersBank executive, is president for 2020, having been a board member for the past 11 years. Deborah Camm, a Merrick Bank executive, is the vice president. Chase Oelkers of Folium Biosciences and Scott Defazio of Fiserv were elected directors. John Newton …
Read More »As Mobile Wallets Proliferate Globally, Pricing Emerges As a Key Tactic for Growth
Mobile wallets aren’t the revolutionary products they were a few years ago, but as more and more entities launch new ones across the world, the apps are getting much more diverse and cheaper to use. That’s because, while sponsors continue to battle for adoption, they’re finding pricing to be a …
Read More »How the Utility of APIs Also Makes Them Targets for Online Criminals
Enabling account access and payments between different platforms is the task of application program interfaces, a bit of software code that thousands of payments companies rely on. Dubbed APIs, the technology is vital to the connected payments experience consumers desire and companies want to provide. Criminals, too, desire access to …
Read More »ParkMobile’s 18 Million Users and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/19/20
ParkMobile LLC, a provider of mobile parking payments, said it has reached 18 million users after a 110% two-year growth rate. It also said it has appointed John Brown chief operations officer. Brown previously held executive positions at Clutch Technologies, Cardlytics, and Fiserv Inc.Payment card provider CPI Card Group Inc. announced its …
Read More »Perk Hero Debuts as Glance Technologies Changes Its Name Amid a Quest for Younger Consumers
The payment habits of Generation Z and Millennial consumers are providing some of the motivation for Glance Technologies Inc. to change its name and mission. Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, and those born in 1997 and later are Gen Z members. Announced Tuesday, the new corporate name is …
Read More »A German Company Unveils a Checkout Buster That Relies on Breakthroughs in RFID Scanning
As merchants and their technology partners continue to develop technology to ditch the familiar checkout, a German entrant on Monday demonstrated a system that would use radio-frequency identification to charge customers as they walk out with their goods. The system, dubbed “payfree,” involves an app that consumers would install in …
Read More »How You Walk Could Some Day Soon Let You Pay to Ride
Two big trends in payments, mass-transit ticketing and advanced authentication technology, could come together soon as Mastercard Inc. develops a system that could identify users simply by the way they walk. Working on the idea that each person has a unique gait, Mastercard and its NuData Security unit are talking …
Read More »PayPal Funds Firearms Payments Research and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/12/20
PayPal Holdings Inc. said it and the Center on Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University, along with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, formed a research project to examine payment methods used to finance illegally-sourced firearms with the goal of combatting the illegal sale of guns.Processor Fiserv Inc. announced its “Scan to …
Read More »Mastercard Forms a Joint Venture To Clear Domestic Chinese Card Transactions
Mastercard Inc. is the latest U.S. payments company to take initial steps to operate in China with Tuesday’s announcement it will form a joint venture with NetsUnion Clearing Corp. to establish a domestic bank card clearing entity. The entity formed from the joint venture—Mastercard NUCC Information Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd.—received …
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