Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Fiserv Inc. executives expect the option to guarantee availability of funds loaded onto prepaid cards from a personal or business check using a smart phone to be a huge point of differentiation for Fiserv’s new Prepaid Source Capture service. Launched last week, the Brookfield, Wis.-based processor’s service enables consumers …
Read More »How Merchants Can Protect Card Data in the Mobile-Payments ‘Dead Zone’
Can merchants make payment applications that run on smart phones secure? Yes, but only after they take some steps they might find to be difficult, according to an expert steeped in the intricacies of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI). “Smart phones were not built for taking payments, …
Read More »Fed Survey Confirms Mobile-Payments Users Remain Rare, but Data Show Growth Potential
Great news for mobile payments: the Federal Reserve says the percentage of consumers using a smart phone to make a purchase at the point of sale grew nearly threefold last year. Not-so-great news: don’t rely on that figure, because it’s too small to be statistically significant. Those and other …
Read More »The FTC Warns of Fraud and Consumer Privacy Issues as Mobile Payments Gain Traction
The Federal Trade Commission is becoming concerned that consumers who use the many emerging mobile-payments services won’t always be protected from fraud and privacy violations. In a staff report released this week entitled “Paper, Plastic or Mobile? An FTC Workshop on Mobile Payments,” the FTC lists a series of recommendations …
Read More »How Facebook, White Labeling and Loyalty Technology Helped LevelUp Reach a User Milestone
Using a three-pronged technology play that includes enabling consumers to share merchant offers through social media, Boston-based SCVNGR Inc.’s mobile-payments unit LevelUp has added 500,000 new consumer users in just the past four months, bringing its total user base to 1 million. The strategy is part of a larger plan …
Read More »MasterCard Starts Rollout for MasterPass, Its Open Digital-Wallet Platform
Nine months after unveiling its digital-wallet strategy, MasterCard Inc. on Monday announced the start of that strategy’s implementation. Known as MasterPass, the new wallet platform enables mobile payments by consumers using either near-field communication (NFC) technology or quick-response (QR) codes to trigger links between handsets and merchant terminals. Wallets based …
Read More »Visa Teams up with Samsung And Roam To Develop Mobile Payments
Visa Inc. is teaming up with the hot smart-phone manufacturer Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to kick-start the market for near-field communication (NFC) payments, and it’s also got a deal with technology provider Roam to develop mobile payments. Under an agreement with South Korea-based Samsung that Visa announced Monday, banks and …
Read More »PCI Council Releases Mobile-Acceptance Guidance, But No Word on Certification of Apps
The PCI Security Standards Council on Thursday released yet another set of data-protection guidelines for mobile payments, this one aimed at merchants using smart phones and tablet computers to accept credit and debit cards. Although it touches on many points, the guidance especially focuses on the software running on …
Read More »A Startup Emerges to Replace Passwords With a Wide Menu of Alternative Identifiers
Aiming to resolve a vexing security problem presented by user names and passwords, Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup Nok Nok Labs launched on Tuesday with $15 million in financing. Next month, Nok Nok will start shipping software that will allow users of PCs and mobile devices to identify themselves to …
Read More »Criminals Are Increasingly Targeting E-Commerce And Mobile Devices, Study Finds
Fraudsters are turning their attention to e-commerce sites, continuing to improve the malware they use to find and harvest payment card data, and sensing opportunity in mobile devices, according to the latest annual data-breach report by Trustwave Holdings Inc. Chicago-based Trustwave, a leading data-forensics investigator and security vendor, based …
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