Transaction Processing

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Traffic on the nation’s automated clearing house network has perked up over the last couple of years, and the latest statistics show no slacking off in that trend. Second-quarter transaction volume on the ACH grew 5.6% in the quarter ended June 30, down from the first …

• The ATM Industry Association issued an updated position paper in support of variable surcharges, or so-called “convenience fees,” for ATM transactions; the trade group says global network policies effectively force ATM deployers to assess uniform surcharges despite differences in network interchange rates and fees, and that the coming of …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews The big banks that run clearXchange are getting around to slapping a brand name on the peer-to-peer payments network, five years after founding it. The new name is going to be Zelle, confirms a spokesperson for Early Warning Services LLC, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based fraud-management company that real-time …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews In new court filings, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are denying the antitrust allegations that The Home Depot Inc. leveled against them in a June lawsuit. That’s no surprise, but the networks’ responses leave some arcane network fees shrouded in mystery. Visa and MasterCard filed answers to …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Chip-on-chip transaction volume continues to rise as the United States payments industry nears the one-year mark since the Oct. 1, 2015, liability shift, totaling 554.8 million in July, a 26% increase from 440.1 million in May, Visa Inc. announced Tuesday. Since November, Visa’s chip-on-chip transactions have more …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews The Third Party Payment Processors Association is stepping in to lend support to Operation Choke Point, a federal government initiative targeting high-risk merchants via their payments providers. The

• Apparel retailer Eddie Bauer LLC said payment cards used at its more than 350 U.S. and Canadian stores from Jan. 2 to July 17 may have been compromised by malware placed on its point-of-sale systems, KrebsOnSecurity.com reported. The malware has been removed; Eddie Bauer said the “intrusion was part …

JPMorgan Chase Co.’s Chase Pay mobile wallet, probably the most ambitious bank-operated U.S. mobile-payments service, on Wednesday announced it has signed up Phillips 66 Co., which sells gasoline under the Phillips 66, Conoco, and 76 brands, and will accept Chase Pay at its pumps and in its stores. No date …

A streamlined approval for contactless mobile-payment devices announced Wednesday by chip card standards body EMVCo could help mobile-payments boosters realize their elusive dream that the coming of chip cards to the U.S. also will lift smart-phone-based payments. The new approval process is meant to confirm that mobile devices enabled for …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Acquirers that service merchants that still use dial-up point-of-sale terminals have a new option for connecting these no-longer-mainstream devices to processors with the launch of a new product from Transaction Network Services Inc. Announced Tuesday, the service from Reston, Va.-based TNS provides acquirers with one connection to …