News

August, 2009

• 4 August

  As PayPal Returns to Normal, Outage Leaves Questions in Its Wake

  As PayPal Inc. recovers from a major?and apparently unprecedented?system outage on Monday, questions are starting to emerge about the actual impact on online merchants and about the e-commerce processor's preparedness for such emergencies. PayPal reported late in the day that its network was functioning normally again after the failure of …
• 4 August

  Heartland Hit by Drop in Same-Store Sales, But Encryption Moves Ahead

  A record decline in same-store sales and a $19.4 million charge for costs related to its data breach put big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. into the red during the second quarter. But Heartland executives on Tuesday pointed to bright spots, and also said their post-breach efforts to develop …
• 3 August

  Issuer Cutbacks Result in 104 Million Fewer U.S. Credit Cards

  Profits and overall transaction volumes are still growing for Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., but the bank card networks' latest quarterly numbers show just how severe the cutback by recession-racked credit card issuers is becoming. In fact, there are about 104 million fewer credit cards circulating in the U.S. today …

July, 2009

• 30 July

  Pain on Main Street: A First-Ever Drop in Card-Based Same-Store Sales

  As the recession continues to batter merchants of all sizes, small and medium-size retailers are getting hit especially hard, and as a result so are the acquirers that process their card transactions. Indeed, in a development apparently never seen before, same-store sales on Visa and MasterCard for these Main Street …
• 29 July

  A Mitek-Fiserv Deal Lifts Prospects for Mobile Deposit Capture

  Mitek Systems Inc., whose software allows users to create check images with their camera phones and then use the handsets to send the images to banks for deposit, signed its biggest processor to date this week for the six-month-old technology. Milwaukee-based Fiserv Inc. agreed to adopt Mitek's Mobile Deposit product …
• 29 July

  Wireless Carriers Are Poised to Seize Mobile P2P, Report Says

  Banks face a new threat in electronic payments, according to a report just out from Javelin Strategy and Research: the ability of telecommunications companies to take the driver's seat in mobile person-to-person payments. This risk comes to the fore as the number of so-called smart phones explodes and consumers show …
• 28 July

  A Year Later, 500,000 Takers for Social Security Card Surprises Experts

  The U.S. Treasury Department's Direct Express card for Social Security recipients apparently is the right prepaid card at the right time. Treasury's Financial Management Service last week reported that more than 500,000 Americans use the Comerica Bank-issued card, which is aimed at getting Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) …
• 28 July

  A Startup Builds on Cap One’s Decoupled Debit Program to Run Rewards

  A company founded by the man behind Capital One Financial Corp.'s decoupled debit program is introducing what it terms a “next-generation debit rewards” system that allows banks to provide cost-free rewards to cardholders. Under the system developed by Atlanta-based Cardlytics, merchants fund rewards that will be offered to banks' online-banking …
• 27 July

  Home Depot Opens the Door to Big-Box Contactless Payments

  MasterCard Inc.'s announcement on Monday that The Home Depot Inc. would accept the MasterCard PayPass contactless card at 1,974 U.S. locations, along with last week's news that sporting-goods chain The Sports Authority also would take PayPass, indicate that the card network is looking beyond the original base of cash-oriented merchants …
• 24 July

  An ISO Shows How Smart Phones Are Taking Root in Acquiring

  The concept of using so-called smart phones as mobile credit card terminals started getting headlines less than a year ago, and the experience of one independent sales organization that has developed software applications for the mobile devices shows just how rapidly handsets like iPhones and BlackBerrys are taking root in …