News

February, 2012

• 16 February

  Facebook Seeks New Revenues with a Promotion for Its Virtual Currency

  Behind all the buzz about social payments and virtual currency is an often-overlooked fact: few social-network members today actually use digital money. The antidote for this ailment, according to executives in the social-networking world, is something they call monetization, which is simply a term for tactics that generate revenues from …
• 15 February

  Mocapay Expects To Hit Its Stride with a Revamped Business Model And Technology

  Mocapay Inc., one of the earliest startups in the mobile-payments space, finally is poised to go national with new partners, a different pricing model, and a broadened set of technological options that its president says makes payments by smart phone easier for merchants and consumers. Mocapay launched in 2006 and …
• 14 February

  Google Announces a Fix for Prepaid Flaw As Security Holes Plague Its Wallet

  Google Inc. late on Tuesday announced a solution for a security flaw in its mobile wallet that allows hackers to gain access to wallet owners’ prepaid accounts. Google also said it had, on Monday afternoon, restored the ability to load funds on new prepaid cards. In response to the flaw, …
• 13 February

  Plenty of Tests And Contracts, But No High-Speed Route to Contactless Payments

  The nation’s largest transit operators are moving toward so-called open-fare payment systems that will enable riders to pay fares with just a tap of a contactless bank card at a subway turnstile or a terminal on a bus. Replacement of old fare systems, however, is not going at nearly the …
• 9 February

  Durbin Begins to Bite at Visa As Debit Growth Slows in the Latest Quarter

  While acknowledging that federal pricing regulations are crimping growth in its debit card business, Visa Inc. late on Wednesday presented an upbeat report to investors that stressed new ventures like its recently introduced digital wallet, V.me. Separately, the world’s largest card network also unveiled new tools to help client banks …
• 9 February

  Now Taking EMV Cards at Some U.S. Stores, Wal-Mart Prods EFT Networks to Get in the Game

  With both Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. now on the record with plans to encourage the adoption of EMV chip card and mobile payments in the U.S, it seems all but certain that the magnetic-stripe payment card’s days are numbered. In fact, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. already is seeing some EMV …
• 8 February

  Food, Dining Places Especially Vulnerable to Card-Data Breaches, Report Finds

  Among all the types of merchants that accept card transactions, coffee shops, pizza parlors, burger places, and food stores might need to keep an extra-careful watch on their card data. If they’re operating as a franchisee and part of a chain, they might want to be especially wary. And if …
• 7 February

  Visa Unveils Chip Services As Its U.S. EMV Card Base Crosses the 1 Million Threshold

  Visa Inc. reported on Monday that its U.S. financial-institution clients have issued more than 1 million chip cards compliant with the EMV standard. The leading payment card network also introduced new EMV processing services so that issuers can reduce their own investments in chip technology. Just over 10 issuers now …
• 6 February

  Datacard, DeviceFidelity Prepare for Mass Issuance of Micro SD Cards for NFC

  In a move that could herald a time when card issuers will be able to mass produce specialized cards equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology, Datacard Group on Monday announced it has taken an equity stake in DeviceFidelity Inc., a Richardson, Texas-based startup that makes micro Secure Digital (SD) cards …
• 3 February

  As Payments Boom for Facebook, Competition Could Cut into Revenues

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