Merchant processor Square Inc. is about to introduce a card reader that supports Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payment service, Apple announced Monday. Apple Pay also will support retailers’ loyalty programs, according to Jennifer Bailey, Apple Inc.’s vice president of Internet services. The announcements came at the start of Apple’s Worldwide …
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A Cut in a Controversial ACH Fee Pleases Big-Box Retailer Group, But a Bank Shrugs
The reduced interbank fee of 5.2 cents contained in the same-day settlement plan approved this week by members of NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network, is likely to go down better with major merchants than the 8.2-cent fee contained in the original proposal. “The level of …
Read More »E-Commerce Sales Hit 7% of Retail Volume for the First Time
Electronic commerce hit a milestone in the first quarter by accounting for 7% of total retail sales for the first time, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau reported Friday. Preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau pegged seasonally adjusted retail sales at $1.15 trillion, with e-commerce totaling $80.3 billion. In 2014’s …
Read More »Dining, Travel and Household Needs Fueling Retail Sales Growth: Visa
Consumers continued to make retailer tills ring in the first quarter, increasing sales, minus automobiles and fuel purchases, at a 4.5% growth rate over the same period in 2014, finds Visa Inc.’s latest Retail Spending Monitor. Overall retail sales growth, include automobile sales, was a modest 1.2%. The largest …
Read More »Retailers Eye EMV as a Near-Term Reason for POS System Upgrades
Retailers will take their time upgrading their point-of-sale systems for compatibility with the EMV chip card standards, finds EKN Research’s “2015 Retail Point-of-Sale Blueprint” report. Only a minority of retailers—mostly the largest ones—will be ready by Oct. 1, though within two years 70% of them will be ready for the …
Read More »While EMV And Mobile Captivate the Industry, Big Retailers Express Frustrations
By John Stewart EMV chip cards and mobile payments may be two abiding passions of the payments industry these days, but major merchants are far from sold on either technology, judging by comments from a number of them Tuesday at a payments-technology conference. Most big retailers are gearing up for …
Read More »Eye on Mobile: Mobile Devices Becoming More of a Retailer Ally in Authenticating Online Consumers
Smart phones may become a strong ally to fraud-plagued e-commerce merchants in helping to verify the location and identity of an online shopper. Online fraud is often committed by criminals who manipulate their computer’s location data and other attributes to make it appear they are who they say they …
Read More »Shoppers Favor Retailers That Accept Mobile Wallets—And Punish Those That Don’t
By John Stewart While big-time companies like Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Samsung Electronics Co. prepare to battle it out for control of mobile payments, evidence is emerging that consumers may be strongly inclined to reward merchants that accept mobile wallets and punish those that don’t. Some 30% of consumers …
Read More »An Interbank Fee Is a Fly in the Ointment for Retailers Reacting to Same-Day ACH Idea
Merchants that have spent years battling card-acceptance fees are turning a jaundiced eye toward a proposal to speed up payments on the nation’s automated clearing house network. That’s because the same-day settlement proposal, floated in December by NACHA, the ACH’s rules-setting organization, contains a so-called interbank fee that, for some …
Read More »The ACH Adds Some Octane to a Retailer’s Mobile App
A gas-station and convenience-store chain is proving you don’t have to sell fancy coffee concoctions to generate impressive results with a mobile app. The program called SmartPay from Cumberland Farms, which operates nearly 600 stores in eight Northeastern states, enrolled 100,000 customers in the first 45 days after its 2013 …
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