Transaction Processing

While most attention in e-commerce is focused on enabling payments for Web sites run by major chains, airlines, and other hard-goods merchants and sellers of high-end services, some processors have begun to carve out stakes in a corner of online commerce that doesn't get as much notice?digital goods. This week, …

Merchants are getting the message that they should not store credit and debit card data, but that's turning into yesterday's issue, according to Chicago-based Trustwave, one of the big card-industry security consultancies. In a report released on Monday, Trustwave says that computer hackers may still be able to steal card …

The steady march toward more secure payment-processing software is likely to force many?possibly thousands?of small software vendors out of the market of serving merchants and card processors. These vendors will find it too expensive to upgrade their existing point-of-sale and related applications to meet specifications set forth in the new …

As many as one-third of U.S. financial institutions could within the next two years adopt a technology that allows customers at home to convert paper checks into imaged deposits that can be transmitted to the bank via online-banking links. The strongest interest in this so-called consumer-capture capability is likely to …

In another sign of sweeping changes in the Canadian payment card market, Visa Inc.'s Visa Canada unit last week published interchange rates on its Web site for the first time. The posting comes at a time when merchants are complaining about higher rewards-card acceptance costs and expressing fears that possible …

The torrent of press releases promoting this new mobile-banking technology or that new mobile-banking service usually references, either implicitly or explicitly, the consumer as the end user. But small businesses represent a far more receptive user group for mobile-banking services, including bill payments, according to a new report from Boston-based …

For a financial-services industry in the throes of economic upheaval, the final rule for implementing the controversial Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA)?issued on Nov. 12 by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve?represents another set of requirements with which to struggle. But for many banks and …

The Canadian governmental body responsible for regulating competition told banks last week it now has no problem with financial institutions issuing both Visa- and MasterCard-branded cards or acquiring transactions on either bank card network, a radical change from present policy. The decision will likely spur not only fundamental changes on …

In buying Chockstone Inc., a provider of gift card and loyalty services and technology for merchants, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. essentially is making a bet that merchants with loyal customers make more loyal clients for merchant acquirers. “That certainly is part of the thought process,” Heartland president and chief financial …

The PCI Security Standards Council on Monday introduced a quality-assurance program for the companies that determine whether a merchant, processor, or other entity that touches credit and debit card data meets the council's rules. The Wakefield, Mass.-based council's aim is to ensure more uniform enforcement of the Payment Card Industry …