News

January, 2020

• 8 January

  Gift Card Spending Doubles and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/8/20

  

  Consumers spent 7% more on gift cards during the 2019 holiday shopping season than in the same period in 2018, doubling the 3.4% gain seen in 2018 over 2017, according to data from prepaid program manager Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc., which did not release absolute spending numbers.The U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau …
• 7 January

  Square Raises Its Price for Instant and Same-Day Transfers to 1.5%

  

  In its latest pricing change, Square Inc. disclosed Tuesday that it will raise the cost of instant and same-day transfers from its merchants’ Square balances to their bank accounts to 1.5% per transfer from the previous rate of 1%. The change, announced on Square’s blog, took effect Tuesday for new …
• 7 January

  Fingerprint ID Dominates Authentication, But Facial Recognition Is Growing Fast

  

  With payments fraud growing every year, the pressure is on in markets worldwide to adopt more sophisticated technology to verify the identity of mobile users. Against that backdrop, the winning technology is fingerprint recognition, with facial-recognition systems presenting a fast-growing alternative, according to the latest study from United Kingdom-based Juniper …
• 7 January

  Uber Adds Public-Transit Payment Option in Las Vegas

  

  After rolling out access to public transportation fare payments on its app in Denver last year, ride-hailing leader Uber Technologies Inc. has added a similar service in Las Vegas. Fare-payment software provider Masabi Ltd. said late Monday that it along with the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) and …
• 7 January

  MyPinPad Gets Added PCI Certification and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/7/20

  

  MyPinPad, a provider of technology enabling PIN entry on off-the-shelf mobile devices, said it has been granted certification from the PCI Security Standards Council for its software-based PIN entry on a Commercial off-the-shelf (SPoC) product for iOS.Shift4 Payments Inc., which filed for a proposed public offering in December, said it completed certification …
• 6 January

  For Bitcoin, 2019 Was a Bit Less Wild, But Volatility Still Haunts the World’s Biggest Digital Currency

  

  Bitcoin entered 2020 on a high note but remains a volatile cryptocurrency, both in value and in transaction cost. That volatility can reward savvy users but continues to hinder the leading cryptocoin’s usefulness as a payment method. The coin exited 2019 with a value exceeding $7,000, roughly double what it …
• 6 January

  ‘Alexa, Fill ‘er Up.’ Amazon Pay Coming to Cars Via ExxonMobil and Fiserv

  

  Consumers with Alexa, Amazon.com Inc.’s voice assistant, enabled in their cars and trucks soon will be able to pay for fuel at more than 11,500 Exxon and Mobil gas stations from inside their vehicles. Announced Monday, the service, compatible with vehicles with Alexa built in or enabled with an Echo …
• 6 January

  MoneyGram Notes Growth and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/6/20

  

  MoneyGram International Inc. announced online transactions grew more than 70% year-over-year between Dec. 1 and Dec. 25, a record growth rate for that period. The money-transfer provider, which did not report the actual transaction volume, said 80% of the transactions were initiated on a mobile device.PayPal Holdings Inc. has closed on its …
• 3 January

  Payment Stocks Sputtered Toward 2019’s End, but They Still Outperformed the Market for the Year

  

  Payment-company stocks lost ground as a group in December and didn’t match the major market indexes in the fourth quarter, but they still bested the indexes for all of 2019, according to a new report. Twenty-six electronic-transaction processor stocks monitored by Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. posted a negative mean …
• 3 January

  eBay Unfazed by Payment Critics and other Digital Transactions New briefs from 1/3/20

  

  An eBay Inc. executive said the online marketplace will not back down on the introduction of its Managed Payments program in the face of criticism from some sellers regarding the program’s costs and policies. The company introduced the new payments program, which relies on gateway services from Adyen N.V., last year after years …