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United Airlines is equipping more than 23,000 flight attendants with Apple Inc.’s iPhone 6 Plus smart phone to be used as a payment-acceptance device on flights. Distribution of the devices is expected to begin in the second quarter. United says the devices will be able to handle most onboard …
Read More »With Direct Service, Dwolla Streamlines Payments to Persons Without Dwolla Accounts
Dwolla Inc. has entered the race to simplify—and ultimately speed up—payments between individuals and between organizations and individuals. Starting Thursday, the 6-year-old Des Moines, Iowa-based payments provider is allowing people who don’t have Dwolla accounts to receive payments from Dwolla users and flow them directly into their bank account. The …
Read More »Gateway Charge Anywhere Discloses a Breach Affecting Undisclosed Number of Credit and Debit Cards
Chalk another payment-card data breach up for the bad guys. Payment gateway Charge Anywhere LLC announced Tuesday it discovered a breach of its payments network. It says it has shut down the malware that caused it. South Plainfield, N.J.-based Charge Anywhere said the malicious software, which was discovered Sept. …
Read More »Trade Groups Petition Congress in Effort to Ease Cybercrime Information Sharing
The Merchant Financial Cyber Partnership, a unique coalition of eight financial-services trade associations and 11 merchant groups, wants Congress to make it easier for retailers and financial institutions to share information with each other related to data breaches. Merchants and financial-services companies often are bitter foes when it comes …
Read More »Though Under a Cloud of Doubts, Bitcoin Marches Past 100,000 Mark in Daily Transactions
While governments and established payments networks around the world reckon with Bitcoin, the upstart digital currency has itself had to reckon this year with volatility that has seen its price plunge about 50% since its $700-plus January high. But in other respects, Bitcoin is riding high. One of the latest …
Read More »Mobile Commerce Soars As Consumers Begin Their Holiday Shopping
Consumers wielding smart phones and tablets put their PayPal accounts to work over the just-passed holiday-shopping weekend. PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc. until its anticipated spinoff in 2015, says its global mobile-payments volume increased 62% on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, over the same day in 2013. …
Read More »Holiday-Season Demand Taps More Cash From Fledgling PayPal Working Capital
As small online merchants prepare for holiday-season sales, they’re seeking out financing to support extra help and added order fulfillment, and that’s boosting new financing options from online processors. PayPal Inc., for example, now has 20,000 mostly e-commerce businesses using its 15-month-old PayPal Working Capital merchant cash-advance service. It has …
Read More »Security Firm Predicts Hackers Will Target Apple Pay and ATMs in 2015
What’s that big, juicy new target out there for cyber-hackers? Apple Pay, of course. And don’t forget ATMs, either, since many deployers have yet to upgrade machines running old, increasingly vulnerable versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP operating system. Apple Pay and ATMs are included on Woburn, Mass.-based data-security services …
Read More »Parking Garage Operator Says Card Readers at 17 Locations Were Hacked
Parking-garage operator SP Plus Corp. says card readers at 17 garages it operates were hacked this fall, with one breach extending back to April. Chicago-based SP Plus says the company that provides and maintains the payment card systems in the 17 garages—10 are in Chicago, three in Evanston, Ill., …
Read More »Three Years After Durbin, Debit Pricing Flaw Still Drives up Cost for Small-Ticket Sellers
Three years after the Durbin Amendment took effect, the law’s painful impact on the cost of selling soda, candy, newspapers, and other small-ticket items remains an issue. And things may stay that way unless the newly elected Congress acts after taking office at the turn of the year, observers say. …
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