Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
With an eye on the image-exchange networks banks have built since Check 21 took effect more than five years ago, analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the head of the rules-setting organization for image exchange are proposing a new form of payment that would allow consumers and …
Read More »Hypercom And Ex-Boss of TNS Lay Plans to Spark Growth for HBNet
Hypercom Corp. and the McDonnell Group are forming a joint venture to deliver high speed transaction transport services worldwide. The venture, which will acquire and operate Hypercom's 5-year-old HBNet transaction-transport service, will be called Phoenix Managed Networks LLC and will be headed by John (Jack) McDonnell, founder and former chief …
Read More »Accel/Exchange Plans a Big Acquiring Push for Online PIN Debit
The Accel/Exchange electronic funds transfer network, which on Nov. 9 became the first EFT network to roll out online PIN debit to consumers, is pleased with results so far and has plans to begin a major recruitment drive to sign up merchant acquirers for the program next year, says Michael …
Read More »C-Stores Prepare New Anti-Interchange Petition Drive
Retailers fighting what they say are high payment-card acceptance costs are not letting the heated debates about health care or President Obama's planned troop surge in Afghanistan push interchange off the political stage. The NACS?The Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing, next week will launch what it calls Phase 2 …
Read More »After the GAO Report, Outlook for Interchange Regulation Is Cloudy
The Government Accountability Office's report about interchange came out on Thursday, and every group either for or against the controversial transaction fee has put its own spin on the findings since then. That raises the question of whether Congress will actually take action on three pending interchange bills. Forecasting Congressional …
Read More »Reducing Interchange Would ‘Pose Challenges,’ the GAO Says
If merchants on the one side and bank card issuers and payment card networks on the other were looking for endorsements of their opposing positions about interchange, they didn't get them Thursday when the Government Accountability Office issued a long-awaited report about the controversial fee. The GAO, the investigative arm …
Read More »House Interchange Bill Brings Out the Venom on Both Sides
Rested after their recent skirmish over 7-Eleven Inc.'s anti-interchange petitions, the interchange partisans went at it again Thursday in Congress. The battleground this time was a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the bill from U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., that would require more interchange disclosures and demolish most of …
Read More »Fraud, Security Raise Cost Concerns for ATM Managers, Report Says
Fraud control and data security rank at the top of bank ATM executives' concerns as they try to keep their networks competitive, according to results of an Aite Group LLC survey. A separate survey by Bankrate Inc., meanwhile, shows that ATM surcharges rose over the past year but foreign fees …
Read More »AmEx Cuts Gift Card Fees And Expands Simon Mall Card Program
American Express Co. turned up the competitive heat in the gift card sector Wednesday by announcing the immediate elimination of monthly fees on all of its gift cards. AmEx also announced an expanded gift card program with shopping mall operator Simon Property Group Inc., the nation's largest public real-estate company …
Read More »A Special Delivery on the Hill Makes Interchange a Grassroots Issue
A delegation from 7-Eleven Inc., including the convenience-store giant's chief executive and a handful of franchisees, cast the card-interchange issue as a matter of grassroots politics on Wednesday by personally delivering to lawmakers in the nation's capital petitions with nearly 1.7 million signatures calling for interchange regulation. The petitions, which …
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