News

September, 2008

• 4 September

  Canadian Business Group Warns of Higher POS Debit Pricing

  A big change may be in the offing for Canada's point-of-sale debit market that could bring American-style percentage-based interchange to a system whose pricing currently is based on flat fees. The change could possibly even bring Visa and MasterCard debit cards to the country for the first time. The result, …
• 3 September

  E-Commerce Faces a Rapidly Rising Threat from Fraudsters’ Malware

  Evidence is mounting that criminal attacks on e-commerce via keyloggers and other code that detects user credentials are growing rapidly. The number of URLs used to disseminate such malware soared to a record 6,500 in March, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. That's nearly double the …
• 3 September

  PayPal’s Airline Business Gains More Altitude with Continental

  Continuing its conquest of the nation's air carriers, PayPal Inc. reports that it is now accepted on Continental Airlines Inc.'s Web site. Houston-based Continental's acceptance of PayPal leaves the nation's two largest carriers, American and United, as the only big domestic holdouts. Besides newly booked Continental, which claims to be …
• 2 September

  Merchant Gripes Led Startup Comparison Site to Focus on Processing

  Widespread problems reported by small businesses with their card-processing vendors led a startup comparison-shopping Web site for business-to-business financial services to focus on transaction processing, the co-founder says. Chicago-based Transparent Financial Services LLC, which operates as a kind of Orbitz for entrepreneurs looking for financial services, plans to add health …
• 1 September

  ISOs Hope To Influence Upcoming Merchant Reporting Regulations

  It lost in Congress, so now the merchant-acquiring industry is looking to the bureaucracy to help soften the blow of a new federal reporting requirement that becomes effective in 2011. The requirement, part of the massive mortgage-relief bill President Bush signed into law a month ago, will force the card …

August, 2008

• 28 August

  Public Sector Drives Network-Branded Prepaid Card Growth

  The dollar value loaded onto so-called network-branded or open-loop prepaid cards grew nearly 45% last year, or nine times the growth rate of closed-loop cards, according to a new report from Mercator Advisory Group. Mercator's fifth annual study of network-branded cards says the public sector is emerging as one of …
• 27 August

  Users Proliferate, But Banks Face a Cost Squeeze in Online Bill Pay

  More people than ever are paying bills electronically, but banks have few ways of making money from that trend, according to separate research reports out this week. The latest consumer survey from bill-pay technology provider CheckFree, a unit of bank processor Fiserv Inc., estimates that 63.1 million Internet-using households pay …
• 26 August

  Post-IPO, the Bank Card Networks Open up To Go for Volume

  This is the fifth installment of a six-part series exploring the growing economic tensions and structural conflicts between acquirers and issuers in the bank card business. Once upon a time, the idea of non-bank access to the Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide networks for payment innovations was about as far-fetched …
• 26 August

  Eye on the Web: Biller Direct Grows, As Does U.S. Mobile Web Usage

  Both biller Web sites and bank or so-called consolidator sites are gaining market share, but biller sites are growing faster, according to recent research. Sites maintained by billers will account for 13% of all consumer bill payments this year, up from 11% in 2007. Consolidator sites, meanwhile, will handle 11% …
• 26 August

  Both Sides Claim Victory After Judge Rules in Discover’s Antitrust Case

  The federal judge presiding over Discover Financial Services' antitrust case against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. for lost business from would-be financial-institution partners has disposed of pre-trial motions, setting the stage for trial in a network conflict that began a decade ago. At issue is the alleged harm to Discover …