For all the progress banks and merchants have made so far with contactless payments, further success is threatened by inconsistent approval criteria for components ranging from chips to readers, an expert in radio-frequency-based payment warns. That inconsistency, he says, is driving up costs and breeding frustration among vendors. “It's just …

The battle over interchange, which has already spawned some 47 antitrust suits against the bank card networks and major banks, reached the U.S. Congress today as advocates for both retailers and banks traded sometimes barbed arguments before a panel holding a one-day hearing to look into the networks' pricing mechanism. …

December was an ominous month for banks, retailers, processors, and other service providers concerned about the safety of the Internet commerce channel. Although the reported number of phishing incidents declined in the last month of last year, that drop masked alarming increases in the number of malicious Web sites launching …

Merchants upset about interchange pricing may or may not ultimately prevail in their pending litigation against the bank card networks, but any outcome is likely to be years away. For now, there are practical steps retailers and service providers can take to cut acceptance costs, an executive with a major …

Pay By Touch Solutions, which has spent the past several years building out a point-of-sale network for its biometric-payment service, is now joining the rush to bring electronic payment alternatives to the Internet. Its new Pay By Touch Online product, which it is announcing today, is set to go live …

A consolidated complaint arising from some 47 interchange lawsuits filed by merchants and merchant groups against the bank card associations over the past seven months will likely emerge within 60 days, with certification of a class coming by fall, a lawyer representing some of the merchants said today. The various …

With the melding of Chase Merchant Services and Paymentech L.P. going smoothly as the new Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC, boss Michael P. Duffy foresees his giant merchant-acquiring firm doing more than $600 billion in charge volume this year. In an interview for a story to appear in Digital Transactions' March …

Debitman Card Inc., which has been seeking issuers for its PIN debit processing network, announced two this week. Binghamton Giant Markets Inc. and HAC Inc., both regional supermarket chains, have agreed to issue cards on Debitman's network. HAC, which runs 67 stores in Oklahoma and Kansas, has begun issuing Debitman …

Four months after introducing a marketing system that communicates with customers' mobile phones, Broadway Marketplace has had such positive sales results its top executive says the Cambridge, Mass.-based supermarket will add an electronic payment function within the next two months. The store, which last September began using a service called …

Webpay Inc.'s Click&Buy payment service, which handles largely digital-content sales, will begin processing transactions on consumers' phone bills April 1. The service will work with two so-far unnamed telecommunications carriers that together cover 55% of U.S. land-line subscribers, says Fabian G. Siegel, president and chief executive of Webpay, which has …