News

November, 2012

• 27 November

  With FSV Under Its Wing, U.S. Bank Poised To Become a Full-Service Prepaid Card Provider

  Already a major player in the prepaid card industry, U.S. Bancorp on Tuesday announced plans to bolster that part of its payment card business by acquiring FSV Payment Services, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based prepaid card program manager and processor. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank issues prepaid cards for more than 4 million account …
• 27 November

  Merchants Appeal a Key Part of the Credit Card Interchange Settlement

  Merchants opposed to the agreement settling a massive, 7-year-old credit card interchange case filed an appeal on Tuesday challenging the court’s preliminary approval of a key part of the pact. The appeal, filed by four merchants and seven merchant trade groups, comes on the same day as the U.S. District Court for …
• 26 November

  Thanksgiving Weekend Shopping Numbers Generally Soar Upward Vs. Last Year

  The reports about consumer spending over the long Thanksgiving shopping period extending into today, Cyber Monday, continue to flow ad nauseam in the mainstream press. Digital Transactions News sifted through the statistical stew to find the numerical nuggets of greatest interest to merchant acquirers. The early data indicate that, when …
• 26 November

  Visa Says New Online Authentication Tool Will Cut Risk While Reducing Abandonment

  With the fabled Cyber Monday shopping frenzy under way, Visa Inc. launched an authentication tool for online transactions intended to cut fraud while reducing the risk of shopping-cart abandonment. The tool, which Visa calls its Consumer Authentication Service, can be deployed by any Visa issuer starting on Monday. The network …
• 21 November

  Fraud Tied to Remotely Created Checks Figures in Bank’s Downfall

  A controversial form of automated debit called the remotely created check (RCC) has figured prominently in the demise of a small bank that processed payments for fraudulent merchants and their third-party processors. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia announced this week that First Bank of Delaware agreed to a settlement …
• 21 November

  Exceeding $700 Million, Payments Investment in 2012 Could Be Most Seen Since 2001

  Venture-capital and private-equity investors are on pace to meet or exceed the $753 million they infused into the payments industry in 2011, the most since the $1.4 billion they invested in payments in 2001. Through the first three quarters of 2012, venture-capital and private-equity investors pumped $711 million into startup …
• 19 November

  Pressing Acquisition Strategy, TSYS Uses ProPay Deal to Get into Mobile Acceptance

  Total System Services Inc.’s announcement late last week that it has agreed to buy ProPay Inc. is the latest chapter in TSYS’s strategy of bulking up its position in the merchant-acquiring business through acquisitions. The deal will also hand the Columbus, Ga.-based processor a key stake in the rapidly growing …
• 19 November

  Loaded with Debt, ISO Pipeline Data Files for Bankruptcy Protection

  Citing a weak economic climate and business setbacks, independent sales organization Pipeline Data Inc. and its affiliates on Monday filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Pipeline hopes to sell itself as a going concern with the help of an investment bank. Alpharetta, Ga.-based Pipeline …
• 16 November

  The Federal Trade Commission Sniffs Around a Visa Debit Gateway

  Already under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for its competitive response to the Durbin Amendment debit card regulations in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act, Visa Inc. is now getting scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission about a gateway service that routes transactions to PIN-debit networks. Visa disclosed on Friday in …
• 15 November

  CreditCall Pushes ‘EMV-in-the-Cloud’ to Ease U.S. Adoption As Readiness Deadlines Near

  With deadlines fast approaching for U.S. merchants, acquirers, and other payments players to adopt the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card standard, vendors are stepping forward with ideas to simplify readiness. One of the latest of these is a concept that asks why chip transactions can’t be managed by remote servers—why, in …