Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Though Covid-19 still casts a long shadow over a number of U.S. states where early reopenings have led to a resurgence in coronavirus cases, data released Monday indicate merchant volume is climbing rapidly across industries. The positive trend includes the hard-hit hospitality sector, according to the latest numbers. Merchants in …
July, 2020
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6 July
Fiserv Lands Big Grocery Chain and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/6/20
Fiserv Inc. said it has begun processing all in-store payments at 2,250 ALDI Nord stores in Germany through First Data Gmbh. Fiserv acquired First Data in 2019. Discover Financial Services said it will donate $25,000 to each of 200 restaurants owned by black proprietors. Nominations are being taken between now and Oct. …
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3 July
Venmo Testing a Mobile-Payments Service for Small Merchants
Taking a page from Square Inc.’s playbook, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo peer-to-peer payments service is testing what it calls Venmo Business Profiles, a potentially revenue-generating service that enables Venmo users who are sole proprietors of small businesses to sell goods through an affiliated page visible to other Venmo users. Announced …
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2 July
BNY Mellon Works With Early Warning to Enable Real-Time Account Validation for Real-Time Payments
With real-time payments comes real-time risk, and now banks and their technology vendors are attacking the problem of how to make sure funds moving in the blink of an eye are flowing to the proper accounts. The latest move comes from banking power BNY Mellon, which on Thursday said it …
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2 July
Will Consumers’ Payment Habits Return to Their Pre-Covid-19 Patterns?
Before being upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment choices U.S. consumers made were fairly stable. The biggest changes from 2018 to 2019 were an upswing in online bill payments and continued slippage in cash usage, according to new findings from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Based on a …
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2 July
European Banks Plan Payment Network and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/2/20
A group of 16 European banks said they plan to launch a “truly European” unified payments system by 2022 that would be an alternative to Visa and Mastercard, Reuters reported.The slowdown in in-store shopping due to the Covid-19 pandemic has caused some stores to run out of coins; most recently big-box grocery chain …
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1 July
How the Pandemic Has Hastened Small Merchants’ Conversion to Contactless And Online Channels
Evidence continues to accumulate that the Covid-19 pandemic is not only boosting contactless and online payments, but doing so in historically short order. Some 48% of small and medium-size merchants reported in mid-June that they had observed an increase in the number of consumers either using contactless payments or asking …
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1 July
New ACH Contact-Registry Rule Takes Effect With the Goal of Reducing Fraud and Exceptions
A new rule requiring all financial institutions in the automated clearing house network to participate in ACH governing body Nacha’s contact registry took effect Wednesday. The registry’s purpose is to enable financial institutions to quickly find the appropriate person to resolve issues when a transaction looks fraudulent or presents other …
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1 July
MagTek Launches Token Service and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/1/20
MagTek Inc. said its Magensa unit launched token technology to make touchless payments easier. The technology enables a merchant to send a payment link containing the token via email or text that allows consumers to pay in a secure environment. MagTek said the technology is available in QwickPAY, the Magensa mobile …
June, 2020
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30 June
Wirecard’s U.S. Unit Bids for a New Owner As Rivals Sense an Opportunity to Win New Business
The fallout from the Wirecard AG financial scandal has hit the U.S. market as the processor’s North American unit announced late Monday it is seeking a buyer. Wirecard North America Inc., based in Conshohocken, Pa., said it has engaged an unnamed investment bank to assist in the transaction. In the …