Transaction Processing

Not only is the sheer volume of phishing attacks rising, but the sophistication by which fraudsters are fooling unwitting Internet users is increasing, as well, according to a recent report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The organization of law-enforcement agencies, security-software companies, and payment networks says it observed several new …

When Visa U.S.A. last month set out a new, stricter transaction-routing policy aimed at making sure all Visa payments flow through VisaNet, its backbone network, the rule's underlying purpose?to curb so-called on-us networking of transactions initiated with Visa cards?made headlines. But another, and less noted, part of the new policy …

Recent jumps in transaction activity and new business from both banks and billers have boosted optimism among online bill-payment processors and brightened their outlook for 2005 and beyond. Princeton eCom Corp., a 21-year-old processor in Princeton, N.J., ended 2004 having closed some 40 deals, including 34 with billers and six …

VECTORsgi said today that recent sales of its software have positioned its systems to control potentially 40% of the volume of check-image exchange. The announcement indicates that, although full-scale transmission among banks of digital check images may still be years away, banks are jockeying to be ready for image exchange, …

Having doubled its merchant base via portfolio acquisitions last year, Dallas-based processor TransFirst has created a product division aimed, it says, at introducing new services to help retain merchants and give independent sales agents more ways to relieve pressure on pricing. The first new products, which will go live in …

This will be a year of substantial deployment for contactless payments based on radio-wave technology as card networks roll out programs and merchants find the systems perform as promised, a new research study says. “Merchants are finding it works,” says Erik Michielsen, director for RFID and ubiquitous networks at ABI …

Reino Parking Systems Inc. said today it had deployed parking meters in locations around the U.S. that will accept credit card payments from either cards or mobile phones, with transactions processed through SunTrust Merchant Services LLC and Peppercoin Inc. The meters are equipped with card swipes, but users with cards …

Some ATM experts are expecting the number of wireless terminals to increase in coming years, and not just for mobile applications like flea markets and fairs. Fixed-location deployments, such as retail stores, may increasingly adopt untethered ATMs because of their TCP/IP connections through readily available public cellular networks and their …

Nashville, Tenn.-based iPayment Inc., a publicly held independent sales organization processing for 125,000 small merchants, reported strong results for the fourth quarter of last year and for all of 2004, driven mainly by increased economies of scale from merchant-portfolio acquisitions. Revenue jumped to $101.4 million for the quarter and $364.2 …

Add-on pricing as well as an increase in manual items kept the fees banks and independent sales organizations pay to processors from dropping in 2004, according to a new acquirer-pricing study released today. Although most observers thought processor fees might decline somewhat last year as a result of the emergence …