News

April, 2015

• 28 April

  MasterCard Makes an Analytics Deep Dive With a $600 Million Acquisition

  MasterCard Inc. announced Monday it is spending $600 million to buy Applied Predictive Technologies Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based company that provides analytics services to retailers, financial institutions, and other companies. The deal, expected to close in the second quarter, provides MasterCard with yet another service for merchants. “Merchants, like financial …
• 27 April

  Better Late Than Never: Discover Cards To Join Apple Pay This Fall

  When it comes to Apple Inc.’s popular Apple Pay mobile-payment service, some players might figure it’s better to be late than never to participate at all. Issuer Discover Financial Services says consumers will be able to use Discover credit and debit cards with Apple Pay beginning this fall. Apple Pay …
• 27 April

  A New Harris Survey Shows That Consumers Feel the Love for Visa and PayPal

  By Jim Daly Grizzled veterans of the payments industry may not have warm and fuzzy feelings for card networks, but the view can be different from consumers’ eyes. In its 27th annual study of brands, a newly released Harris Poll EquiTrend report ranked Visa Inc. as the No. 1 payment …
• 27 April

  MCX Stalwart Best Buy Gives Apple Pay a Boost As Apple Records Strong Quarter

  Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service will be accepted by electronics giant Best Buy Co. Inc., first for in-app purchases and then, later this year, in all of its 1,050 U.S. stores, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Monday. Cook also announced that some 50 hospitals have agreed to accept …
• 24 April

  Mobile Wallet Relies on ACH for Lower Merchant Fees

  A mobile wallet that uses the automated clearing house network to provide merchants with low acceptance costs is in tests with Team One Credit Union in Saginaw, Mich. MShift Inc., of Newark, Calif., is the developer of the mobile wallet it calls AnyWhereMobile. The app is integrated into Team One’s …
• 23 April

  New Costs Imposed on Banks by Same-Day ACH Could Reshape Pricing Approach

  By John Stewart Merchants that use the automated clearing house network to accept transactions may not be happy about a new fee expected to be part of a proposed same-day settlement plan, but the plan will impose significant new costs on financial institutions as well. And those costs could reshape …
• 23 April

  With Its Spin-off Looming, PayPal Reports Strong Growth in Mobile, Overall

  By John Stewart Ahead of an expected separation later this year from its long-time parent eBay Inc., PayPal Inc. on Wednesday reported strong growth in both its overall business and in the burgeoning mobile-payments market. Payments volume for the San Jose, Calif.-based processor climbed 24% in the first quarter compared …
• 23 April

  Alternative Services, Mobile Apps To Help the Feds Traverse the ‘Last Mile’ in Payments

  By Jim Daly Tests of alternative payments and smart-phone apps are in the cards for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Bureau has excised more than 90% of the paper from its payments processes but still must traverse a difficult “last mile” to become a nearly …
• 21 April

  Costco Gets a Lift by Adding Card Acceptance to Food Courts

  By Jim Daly Warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. has been in the news recently because it is  replacing American Express Co. with Visa Inc. and Citigroup Inc. as its major-brand payment card partners. But a little-noticed change in its U.S. stores’ food courts shows what can happen when a retailer adds …
• 21 April

  How New York Transformed from an 18th-Century Laggard Into a Payments Leader

  It isn’t often that a municipality is recognized for its work in the payments space. But that’s what happened Tuesday when NACHA, governing body of the automated clearing house network, gave a New York City department its George Mitchell Payments System Excellence Award for transforming the city’s decentralized, inefficient and …