Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Jim Daly Ask owners of Apple Inc.’s new Apple Watch what they like about their high-tech wearable, and they put notifications and Apple’s health-and-fitness monitoring app at the top of the list. Coming in at No. 7 of their likes is the Apple Pay mobile-payments service, according to new …
Read More »Consumers Know EMV Is Coming, They’re Just Not Sure What It’s All About
By Kevin Woodward Consumers know their credit and debit cards are changing, they’re just not sure exactly what is happening. That’s one of the findings from a survey released by payments provider Harbortouch. In the survey of 18,000 U.S. consumers, 89.4% said they were aware of the transition from magnetic …
Read More »America: Visa’s Unlikely EMV Leader
Americans like to say their country is No. 1. Now, according to Visa Inc., America is No. 1 in a most unlikely category: EMV chip cards. According to figures Visa released Tuesday, some 141.9 million EMV credit and debit Visa cards were in issue in the U.S. as of August, …
Read More »With Its Relay API, Stripe Enlists in Effort to Drive up Conversion Rates in M-Commerce
By John Stewart With conversion rates dismally low in mobile commerce, technology players have been working to streamline transactions with tools that let shoppers buy with as few clicks as possible and while staying within an app. Late Monday, online processor Stripe Inc. joined that effort with Relay, an application …
Read More »As the Liability Shift Rapidly Approaches, Free Can Be a Smart EMV Terminal Motivator
With fewer than 300,000 merchant locations ready for EMV chip card transactions—according to Visa Inc.—efforts to get merchants to upgrade to the more fraud-resistant point-of-sale terminals take on greater importance. For example, iPad-based POS system maker ShopKeep.com Inc. last week began offering merchants a free contactless reader that also accepts …
Read More »Marketing Strategies Can Help Lower Merchant-Acquisition Costs for ISOs
How much does it cost to acquire a merchant? On average, $693. That’s the word from Adil Consulting, an Omaha, Neb.-based firm specializing in merchant acquiring. That figure, as an average, is highly influenced by a number of variables, Adil Moussa, principal, tells Digital Transactions News. Banks, for example, have …
Read More »Under Payments Vet Averett, AcceptEmail Brings Email-Based Bill Pay to the U.S.
AcceptEmail Inc., an Amsterdam-based bill-payment company, is bringing its service to the United States, and has hired a former bill-payment executive to head its North American efforts. Demand for faster payments and the ability to make mobile bill payments aids AcceptEmail’s North American push, says Peter Kwakernaak, chief executive of …
Read More »The New PayPal.Me Makes P2P Payments Personal
PayPal Holdings Inc. is jumping into the free personalized person-to-person payments game with the launch of PayPal.Me. Announced Tuesday, PayPal.Me enables consumers to create personalized permanent links to share with others. When clicked, the links then present a Web page for senders to select the amount and the payment …
Read More »Eye on Wall Street: First Data Names IPO Underwriters; Worldpay in Play?
Payment processor First Data Corp. on Tuesday named a big cast of underwriters for its planned initial public offering of stock. Meanwhile, a German processor reportedly is joining private-equity firms in making a play for United Kingdom-based Worldpay Ltd., which is one of the world’s largest merchant acquirers and has …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Get Ready for EMV’s Longer—And Different—Transactions
With all the attention being given to the upcoming EMV liability-shift deadline on Oct. 1 in the United States, one important issue is getting overlooked. That’s the effect new chip cards and EMV software and equipment will have on the customer experience. According to a recent report on EMV from …
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