Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Some recent statistics indicate banks are making significant headway in their ability to receive and clear electronic check images. PaymentsNation, a major clearing house for checks and check images, reported this week that the number of routing and transit numbers (R/Ts) receiving check images reached 5,275 at the end of …
Read More »‘Challenging’ Times for Visa, MasterCard, But Debit Surges Ahead
Their networks continue to handle ever-increasing transaction volumes, but the chief executives of both MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. warn of “challenging” times for the U.S. payments market, particularly credit. Still, both bank card networks in the past 24 hours reported strong profit growth for their quarters ended March 31. …
Read More »TRM Looks to Revival with $15 Million Deal for Access To Money
After a long period of downsizing and financial turbulence, non-bank ATM network operator TRM Corp. says it's getting its act in order and is ready to grow again. Portland, Ore.-based TRM just bought the New Jersey-based Access To Money network in a $15 million deal that brings another 4,200 ATMs …
Read More »Non-Auction Sales for PayPal Near Half of Processor’s Total Volume
PayPal Inc.'s drive to process a greater share of its transactions outside of the auction marketplace run by its parent company, eBay Inc., showed more signs of succeeding last week with the release of statistics indicating the online processor is now deriving almost half of its payment volume from online …
Read More »Alliance Data Peddles Its Acquiring Unit As Blackstone Deal Crashes
The troubled buyout of Alliance Data Systems Inc. by private-equity firm The Blackstone Group officially died this past weekend, a death that came as no surprise to the payments industry. But still alive is Alliance's effort to sell its merchant-acquiring business built around the former BSI Business Services Inc. front-end …
Read More »PCI Council Will Tighten Data-Security Rules, Details to Come
The Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, is in line for its second upgrade since the PCI Security Standards Council took over development of the standards for protecting cardholder data from the major card networks in 2006. PCI Council general manager Robert Russo announced the coming upgrade Wednesday at …
Read More »Authorize.Net Rolls out Simple Checkout for Small Online Sellers
In an effort to reach very small online merchants seeking a streamlined way to process payments, Authorize.Net on Tuesday unveiled a service it calls Simple Checkout. The new service allows the merchant to use a Web interface to automatically create the code necessary to place a “Buy Now” button on …
Read More »Bankrupt Frontier Airlines Claims First Data Tried To Clip Its Wings
Leading card processor First Data Corp. on Friday found itself cast as the villain in the bankruptcy of Denver-based Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc., which claimed it sought Chapter 11 reorganization in order to prevent its card processor, First Data Corp., from increasing the so-called “holdback” on card charges and thereby …
Read More »Terminal Maker VeriFone Steps into the Busy Data-Security Arena
VeriFone Holdings Inc., a major terminal manufacturer, is entering the burgeoning business of card-data security with a product it says will secure cardholder information from the instant the card is swiped. The product, VeriShield Protect, was announced on Wednesday and encrypts mag-stripe data and the personal account number for the …
Read More »MasterCard Looks to Pick up Debit Volume And Share with IPS
Debit is where the transaction growth is, and now MasterCard Inc. is positioning itself at the center of the action with a new debit-processing platform for card issuers that it calls Integrated Processing Solutions. IPS handles everything from ATM and signature- and PIN-based debit card transactions to prepaid cards?and it …
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