News

February, 2008

• 6 February

  10% of Mobile Banking Enrollees Are New to Wachovia, Bank Reports

  Three months after Wachovia Corp. began offering a mobile-banking service based on a software application installed in customers' handsets (Digital Transactions News, Nov. 13, 2007), the Charlotte, N.C.-based banking company is seeing new enrollments in the service rise at an average of 40% per week, while 10% of enrollments have …
• 5 February

  Fiserv-CheckFree Brings Remote Capture to Online Consumer Banking

  Remote deposit capture still has plenty of territory to conquer in its original business-user market, but bank processor Fiserv Inc.'s CheckFree electronic bill-pay unit on Tuesday unveiled a home-based remote deposit capture service it believes will tap growing consumer demand for electronic banking. Dubbed Remote Deposit Capture for Consumers, the …
• 4 February

  Report: Merchants Need Interchange Breaks to Adopt Contactless

  An absence of incentives?particularly for merchants?is handicapping contactless payments in the U.S., and by extension mobile payment at the point of sale could suffer, according to a new report. About 40,000 U.S. merchants now accept contactless cards and fobs, or 0.5% of all merchant locations. That number will grow to …

January, 2008

• 31 January

  A Rapidly Growing PayPal Makes a Big Bid to Beef up Security

  PayPal Inc.'s rapidly growing payment volume, coupled with its increasing penetration of markets not related to its mainline eBay Inc. business, led to the e-commerce processor's announcement this week that it had agreed to buy an Israeli technology firm, Fraud Sciences Ltd., for $169 million in cash. PayPal says the …
• 31 January

  Debit Traffic Now Bigger Than Credit Transactions for MasterCard

  The weakening U.S. economy that's provoking angst in Washington and on Wall Street has yet to crimp No. 2 payment card network MasterCard Inc., which on Thursday reported strong fourth-quarter financials and transaction growth. MasterCard, however, is seeing a shift away from discretionary spending and toward so-called “everyday” purchases such …
• 30 January

  New Chargeback-Prevention Service Aims To Thwart Friendly Fraud

  Much ado is made about stopping phishing scams, database breaches, and related payment card fraud before it actually happens. But what about legitimate transactions that subsequently generate questionable or outright fraudulent chargebacks, leaving the merchant without revenue after having shipped the goods? A New York payments company called Chargeback File …
• 30 January

  San Francisco NFC Pilot Tests Rewards As Well As Payments

  A test of contactless payment via mobile phones, launched this week in San Francisco, relies on near-field communication (NFC) technology not only to handle transactions but also to manage consumer rewards. It differs from past NFC pilots in the U.S. in another way: It doesn't rely on either the MasterCard …
• 29 January

  Javien Finds Growth Where Others Failed?in Micropayments

  While processors continue to struggle with the economics of micropayments, Javien Digital Payment Solutions Inc. may have found a way to make the tricky payments work. The McLean, Va.-based processor, which this week introduced a payments gateway to go along with a payment-processing platform it offers primarily to sellers of …
• 28 January

  MasterCard Streamlines OTA for Its Spokane M-Payments Pilot

  With its latest pilot for near-field communication (NFC) technology, which was announced on Monday and got under way last Thursday with select U.S. Bancorp credit card holders in Spokane, Wash., MasterCard Worldwide is testing a streamlined version of handset personalization it hopes will make it easier for consumers to adopt …
• 28 January

  Blackstone’s Alliance Data Deal Could Be Latest Victim of Credit Crunch

  The already-delayed $7.8 billion buyout of Alliance Data Systems Corp. by private-equity firm The Blackstone Group may not be consummated, the Dallas-based payment processor disclosed on Monday. The news sent Alliance Data's shares down 34% and fueled speculation that the deal announced last May 17 would become the latest victim …