News

March, 2013

• 7 March

  How Facebook, White Labeling and Loyalty Technology Helped LevelUp Reach a User Milestone

  Using a three-pronged technology play that includes enabling consumers to share merchant offers through social media, Boston-based SCVNGR Inc.’s mobile-payments unit LevelUp has added 500,000 new consumer users in just the past four months, bringing its total user base to 1 million. The strategy is part of a larger plan …
• 6 March

  EMV Chips Get Credit for a Big Drop in Canadian Debit Card Skimming Fraud

  With the U.S. embarking on its gradual implementation of EMV chip card technology beginning this year, recent news from Canada’s national debit network should be encouraging. Introduction of EMV—the Europay-MasterCard-Visa standard—in Canada has helped reduce debit card fraud losses on Interac cards due to skimming to the lowest level since …
• 5 March

  VeriFone Outlines a Recovery Plan for Its ‘Self-Inflicted’ Wounds

    Heads look like they’re going to roll at troubled point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. as it begins what chief executive Douglas Bergeron calls a “rebuilding year” in the wake of missteps that contributed to lower-than-expected revenues. Bergeron told stock analysts Tuesday that the company has initiated “an exhaustive …
• 5 March

  The Fed Takes a Pass on Proposing Changes to Its Durbin Debit Card Regs

  The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday released another report on debit card revenues and expenses and says it does not plan to propose changes to its controversial debit regulations implementing the Durbin Amendment in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. Dodd-Frank requires the Fed to report on the debit card market every two …
• 4 March

  Illinois Cites Square and NetSpend for Not Having Money-Transmitter Licenses

  A spate of cease-and-desist orders by the state of Illinois against unlicensed money transmitters has ensnared eight payments companies, including such prominent ones as Square Inc. and NetSpending Holdings Inc. An agency quietly issued orders against both firms in January that seemingly would prevent them from doing business in the …

February, 2013

• 28 February

  Is Chase Merchant Services an Omen of a Diminished Role for Merchant Acquirers?

  Could the new Chase Merchant Services (CMS) processing entity announced Feb. 26 by JPMorgan Chase and Co. and Visa Inc. be a harbinger of a major change in the way bank card payments operate? The payments industry is abuzz with talk about how CMS could shake things up by enabling …
• 27 February

  With the Garden State’s Greenlight, Online Gambling’s Odds Look Better for Acquirers

  Now that New Jersey has become the third state to legalize online gambling, the market for the first time in years has begun to offer possibilities to acquirers as a promising new source of transaction volume. But questions remain about how and how soon the new state laws will be …
• 26 February

  A 10-Year Visa-Chase Deal Will Include Direct Issuer Links to Select Merchants

  Visa Inc. and banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Tuesday announced a 10-year partnership that promises to shake up the merchant-acquiring world by creating direct links between card issuers and merchants. Chase, which owns the nation’s second-largest acquirer, Chase Paymentech, is licensing a private version of Visa’s VisaNet transaction-processing …
• 25 February

  MasterCard Starts Rollout for MasterPass, Its Open Digital-Wallet Platform

  Nine months after unveiling its digital-wallet strategy, MasterCard Inc. on Monday announced the start of that strategy’s implementation. Known as MasterPass, the new wallet platform enables mobile payments by consumers using either near-field communication (NFC) technology or quick-response (QR) codes to trigger links between handsets and merchant terminals. Wallets based …
• 25 February

  Visa Teams up with Samsung And Roam To Develop Mobile Payments

  Visa Inc. is teaming up with the hot smart-phone manufacturer Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to kick-start the market for near-field communication (NFC) payments, and it’s also got a deal with technology provider Roam to develop mobile payments. Under an agreement with South Korea-based Samsung that Visa announced Monday, banks and …