Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Independent sales organizations and financial institutions that deploy ATMs have suspected for weeks that MasterCard Inc. planned to cut the interchange income allowed on withdrawal transactions on its Cirrus network, but now the total cost of the move is becoming clear. The hit to U.S. ISOs alone could amount to …
Read More »ISOs Lukewarm About Sponsor Banks, Other Vendors, Survey Finds
More than a fifth of independent sales organizations claim to be ready to change their sponsor merchant-acquiring bank, according to a new Aite Group LLC report about ISOs' relationships with their vendors. A smaller but still substantial number also are likely to change some of their other vendors. From July …
Read More »A Dutch Gateway Touts Pricing, Overseas Reach in U.S. Launch
Pressure from the down economy is pushing more online merchants to seek out ways of selling to overseas customers, creating an opportunity for startups like Adyen Inc., a Netherlands-based online payments gateway that announced this week it has started operations in the U.S. Gateways funnel payments for online merchants to …
Read More »In Bypassing iPhone for iPad, Square Shows Its Hand?Or Some of It
The mysterious Square Inc. payment service made a name for itself Monday by joining a somewhat exclusive club of companies to offer the first applications for Apple Inc.'s iPad notepad computer within a couple of days of the iPad's much-hyped April 3 debut. Square also revealed its pricing. San Francisco-based …
Read More »TNS Enters a Crowded Market for Card Acceptance on Handsets
Transaction Network Services Inc. this week announced its entry in what is becoming an increasingly crowded market?applications that let smart phones act as credit and debit card acceptance devices. But TNS, which specializes in providing the transaction-transport systems for point-of-sale and ATM networks, says it will set itself apart by …
Read More »A New Fiserv Widget Aims at Boosting Online Bill Pay Usage
Banking-services provider Fiserv Inc. announced on Monday a free widget that will let banks readily create a simplified bill-payment function on the so-called landing page of their online-banking sites. The widget, which starting some time in the second quarter will also enable person-to-person payments, is a piece of code that …
Read More »Fed Surprises Prepaid Industry with a Tight Deadline for Compliance
Meeting the Aug. 22 deadline for complying with new rules for prepaid and gift cards released on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve will be a logistical nightmare for card companies and retailers that have to replace hundreds of millions of cards before the 2010 holiday shopping season, according to a …
Read More »Bill-to-Carrier Rivalry Heats up with Danal’s Verizon Breakthrough
Competition in the bill-to-carrier mobile payments market is heating up with Verizon Wireless's announcement it will offer the service directly to consumers through Danal Inc.'s BilltoMobile payment service within the next few weeks. The deal marks Seoul, Korea-based mobile payments operator Danal's first contract in the U.S. Danal is in …
Read More »The NRF Wants Dodd To Carry the Interchange-Regulation Torch
Interchange regulation of the kind being advocated by national merchant groups just isn't getting much traction on Capitol Hill. In the latest example, the National Retail Federation on Monday issued a statement saying it was disappointed that U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd's much-awaited proposal for regulatory reform in …
Read More »BofA’s Move on Debit Card Overdrafts Could Herald Big Revenue Drain
Bank of America Corp.'s decision to stop offering overdraft protection on debit card transactions casts a spotlight on billions of dollars in fee revenue issuers earn from cardholders that could drain away if the bank's move becomes a trend. It could also be a harbinger of a move by consumers …
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