Transaction Processing

Seeking to solve what the electronic-payments business calls the “last-mile” problem in image exchange, Viewpointe Archive Services LLC on Tuesday launched technology that allows small banks to link via the Internet to its Pointe2Pointe image-exchange network. In this way, banks can rely on existing Internet connections to use the network, …

Yet another important security deadline is at hand. On Monday, the PCI Security Standards Council, the independent body that administers the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, will make mandatory protection measures in its rules about Internet-facing software applications that the Council currently classifies as best practices. While the PCI rules …

Regulators seeking to rein in so-called remotely created checks aren't going far enough to contain the risk these payment devices pose?particularly when they are processed electronically, says one payments expert. “I think they should ban them,” says George F. Thomas, chief executive at Radix Consulting, Oakdale, N.Y., and a former …

Just as some merchant-acquiring industry lobbyists predicted earlier this year, a revenue-generating proposal that would force acquirers to report their clients' card-based sales to the Internal Revenue Service is making headway in Congress. The proposal is part of the Senate's foreclosure-relief bill that could be up for a vote as …

It spawned the free-terminal craze, but now merchant processor United Bank Card Inc. is launching a service called Harbortouch POS intended to put the margin back into equipment sales to merchants. Harbortouch's business case is built on integrated hardware and software systems that perform a host of business-management functions, payments …

The trend toward combining electronic bill-payment services?particularly payments that post on the same day they're made?with walk-in remittance locations took on more momentum last week with the announcement that Online Resources Corp. will process expedited payments for DolEx Dollar Express Inc., a remittance operation belonging to Atlanta-based Global Payments Inc. …

Assurz Inc., the 3-year-old company that sought to boost consumer confidence in making Internet transactions by offering money-back guarantees on behalf of online merchants, filed for protection under Chapter 7 of the federal bankruptcy code on Monday. The company earlier this month abruptly shut down its service, leaving a trail …

Online auctioneer eBay Inc. and its PayPal payments service are generating headlines this week for enhancing their coverage of buyers' and sellers' losses when sales go bad. Less noticed but also important for merchants, however, are the enhanced risk controls for merchants that PayPal is quietly rolling out. Dubbed Fraud …

While most of the high-profile data breaches involving card numbers have happened at point-of-sale merchants, consumers continue to express reluctance about entering card information at e-commerce sites. And, for at least some of these sites, such consumer concerns may be justified, according to Nicholas J. Percoco, vice president of consulting …

The other shoe dropped on bank card interchange Thursday afternoon when U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., introduced a companion bill to the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008 pending in the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee. Durbin's bill, including its name, is nearly identical to the House version introduced …