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Three months after biometrics-technology provider and payment processor Pay By Touch sought protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles, the dismantling of the firm’s sprawling empire is largely over. Judge Thomas B. Donovan recently approved the sale of the core assets of Solidus Networks Inc.—the formal name of Pay …
Read More »Plunging Check Volumes Spur Fed to Speed up Downsizing Efforts
With check volumes rapidly declining, the Federal Reserve on Monday said it would speed up its previously announced plans to downsize its paper-check processing system. Four full-service processing centers will remain, as under the earlier plan. But the closure or downsizing of other facilities will move up by anywhere from …
Read More »Malware at Hannaford Raises More Questions About Data Security
Fraudsters planted so-called malware, or malicious software, on servers at about 300 supermarkets in or affiliated with the Hannaford Bros. Inc. supermarket chain and with it were able to steal credit and debit card data, according to a letter from a Hannaford attorney to Massachusetts officials. The thefts happened even …
Read More »Pay By Touch Selling Merchant Business to Merrick for $2 Million
After first trying to sell its merchant-processing business as a single unit, bankrupt Solidus Networks Inc., which does business as Pay By Touch, is expected to sell half of it to a big Utah-based merchant acquirer, Merrick Bank Corp., for $2 million, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court …
Read More »New Check Data Show Steady Rise of Electronic Options
Retailers haven't exactly clamored to implement the new back-office conversion electronic-check option (BOC), but adoption will pick up, according to the Federal Reserve's point man on electronic payments. “It's slower than what many of us thought,” Richard Oliver, executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the …
Read More »Banks, Processors Struggle with Proposed Regs for Web Gambling
Nearly 18 months after President Bush signed into law the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), regulators are still struggling to come up with rules to guide financial institutions and payment processors in blocking payments to online gaming sites. And if comments from the financial industry are any …
Read More »Pay By Touch Abruptly Shuts Down All Biometric Operations
Bankrupt Solidus Networks Inc., which does business under the Pay By Touch name, is ending all of its fingerprint-based biometrics operations effective late Wednesday, the company announced Wednesday afternoon. In a news release, the San Francisco-based firm said that at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time March 19, one second before midnight, …
Read More »Mobile P2P ‘Could Take off in a Hurry,’ Researcher Notes
Not only do mobile payments between individuals constitute a strong market opportunity in themselves, but they also lay the groundwork for mobile payments to merchants, according to James Van Dyke, founder and principal of Javelin Strategy & Research, which this week released a research report on the mobile person-to-person (P2P) …
Read More »Hannaford Bros. Was in Compliance with PCI When Hacked
Fraudsters obtained payment card data originating with Hannaford Bros. Co. while the regional supermarket chain was compliant with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI. The disclosure may mark the first publicly known breach of a PCI-compliant merchant. “We were certified [as PCI-compliant] last spring and we were recertified …
Read More »New Metavante Software Aims to Ease Banks’ Way into NACHA Pilot
Metavante Corp. on Tuesday announced software that the Milwaukee-based processor and NACHA, the rules-setting organization for the automated clearing house network, say will make it possible for more banks to participate in a new online payment product NACHA plans to start piloting in less than a month. “This [software] is …
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