Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
With financial institutions lending less to small businesses, new, technology-based companies are moving into merchant lending to fill the void. This is a market typically served by so-called merchant cash-advance firms, companies that lend money in the form of advances against a merchant’s expected credit card volume. In many cases, …
November, 2014
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2 November
FBI and DoJ Officials Offer Advice on How Digital-Currency Firms Can Stay Out of Legal Trouble
Payments entrepreneurs and veterans alike view Bitcoin and other so-called cryptocurrencies as the new land of opportunity, but with the territory comes a considerable amount of legal risk. Federal authorities busted the Liberty Reserve and Silk Road ventures, the latter because it attempted to hide illegal activity by requiring customers …
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2 November
New York State’s Financial Boss Offers Break for Startups as New York Develops Its “Bitlicense”
In an effort to prevent money laundering, New York State’s top financial regulator made history last year when he proposed that virtual-currency providers obtain a so-called “Bitlicense” to ensure that they have proper controls in place to protect consumers’ money. Now Benjamin M. Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department …
October, 2014
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30 October
Led by Former Google Wallet Honcho Bedier, Poynt Offers ‘Attractive’ Terminal But Faces Big Challenges
Count Poynt Co. as the newest member of the point-of-sale terminal maker industry. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company hopes to entice merchants, developers, and resellers to its product. Osama Bedier, Poynt chief executive, formerly led Google Inc.’s Google Wallet and before that worked at PayPal Inc. The L-shaped device rests on …
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30 October
Eye on Earnings: MasterCard’s Volumes Grow; Mercury Boosts Vantiv’s Merchant Segment
Financial analysts gave MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. credit for leading a New York Stock Exchange rally Thursday as higher consumer spending on payment cards boosted the networks’ revenues. And processor Vantiv Inc. reported a 42% increase in merchant-processing revenues in the wake of its June acquisition of Mercury Payment …
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29 October
Theft of Users’ Email Addresses Overshadows MCX’s Attempt To Blunt ‘Misinformed’ Comment
By Jim Daly and Kevin Woodward Just hours after Merchant Customer Exchange LLC (MCX), the retailer-backed developer of the CurrentC mobile-payments service, posted a response to reports about some of its members dumping Apple Inc.’s rival Apple Pay service, the company notified customers that “unauthorized third parties” had obtained email …
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29 October
MCX Implies Its Ready To Accept General-Purpose Cards, but Questions Remain
By Jim Daly Attempting to do damage control in the wake of an email hack and unfavorable publicity about retailers who want to accept other mobile wallets, the chief executive of the retailer-sponsored Merchant Customer Exchange LLC (MCX) mobile-payments service said Wednesday that MCX is working with general-purpose credit card …
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29 October
Visa’s Scharf Stresses the Network’s Digital Future, Promises ‘We Will Win’
Stressing new services such as tokenization, online checkout, and mobile payments, Visa Inc. chief executive Charles W. Scharf on Wednesday left no doubt where the sprawling card network’s future lies. “The things we are doing are all about having the best products in the market to capture where the growth …
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29 October
With Its McDonald’s Deal, Softcard Gains More Access to Everyday Spend for its NFC Wallet
While Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile wallet has been grabbing the headlines, the telco-controlled Softcard mobile-payments service this week lined up another major fast-food chain. Consumers now can use their Softcard mobile wallets to pay for purchases at U.S. McDonald’s locations. Formerly known as Isis, Softcard is a smart …
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28 October
Tech Firms See Opportunity As Remote Capture Leads to Rising Problem of Bad Check Images
For the past decade, image exchange has been one of the undisputed success stories of electronic payments—so much so, in fact, that nearly all banking and retail executives take it for granted that paper checks will clear as images and funds will likely settle the same or next day. But …