Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

December, 2018

• 4 December

  Consumers Have No Reservations About Using P2P Payments To Give Cash During the Holidays

  

  The surge in popularity for peer-to-peer payments is making itself felt in the realm of holiday gifting, helping to erode a longstanding cultural taboo against giving cash during the annual gift-giving season. Gift transactions rose 47.2% in December 2017 over the monthly average for the previous August through October, according …
• 4 December

  Cash Still Favored by Many and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/4/18

  

  Digital Check Corp. said its ScanBox by Digital Check tablet-based scanning platform is now available in North and South America following its release in other markets. In a Cardtronics plc survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, 73% use cash regularly and 92% want a choice in how they pay. Commercial bank Signature …
• 3 December

  A New Service From Mastercard Brings a Shoppable 3-D Store Online

  

  Mastercard Inc. and Next Retail Concepts are bringing to retailers a virtual-shopping experience that has shoppable products. The three-dimensional, digital environment, available across any Web browser, enables consumers to view and buy products as if they were in the store. Images are from the store and include products selected by …
• 3 December

  COMMENTARY: Four Steps to Build a Consumer-Focused Mobile Payments Strategy

  

  Crafting a mobile-payments strategy can be a daunting task. The technology is evolving rapidly, and so are consumer expectations. Rather than starting with capabilities, a successful mobile strategy begins with an understanding of how people engage with their finances as part of their daily lives. Evaluating how consumers use mobile …
• 3 December

  SpotOn Transact Initiates Crypto Acceptance and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/3/18

  

  FreedomPay announced Nando’s, an international fast-casual restaurant chain, will use FreedomPay’s point-to-point encryption payments platform in its Oracle Micros Simphony POS system installations. Payments provider SpotOn Transact LLC agreed to offer acceptance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to merchants via a partnership with Vaultbank, a blockchain-technology firm. Kevin Jones, founder …

November, 2018

• 30 November

  Saving ISO Programs From Outdated Legacy Systems

  

  The payments industry changes quickly as new regulations and market demands force continual improvement. Legacy systems struggle to keep up, and the ISOs on those platforms feel the pain. PaymentSpring felt it was time to change that by creating a flexible new processing platform that gives ISOs and software providers …
• 30 November

  Starwood Breach Raises the Question of Whether Hackers Have Keys to Encrypted Data

  

  Friday’s disclosure from hotel giant Marriott International Inc. that hackers compromised information on up to 500 million guests held in its Starwood reservation system raises the question of whether fraudsters will be able to use an unknown quantity of encrypted payment card numbers because they also might have stolen the …
• 30 November

  Gearfire Payments Targets Shooting-Sports Industry and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/30/18

  

  Independent sales organization Gearfire Payments announced new plans to focus on reducing payment costs for the shooting-sports industry. Atom Tickets, a mobile-ticketing service for the movie industry, said it integrated SMG Access, a loyalty program from Studio Movie Grill, an operator of movie theaters featuring in-theater dining. Target Corp. may …
• 29 November

  Can Amazon Pay Win in Stores? It May Depend on Processing Costs And the Right Incentives

  

  Amazon.com Inc.’s strategy to push its Amazon Pay wallet into physical stores could depend crucially on its ability to cut payment-processing costs and generate marketing advantages for merchants, including Groupon-like incentives, experts tell Digital Transactions News. The new strategy has been in the works at least since 2017 but reached …
• 29 November

  The PCI Council Publishes Updated Guidance for Securing Telephone-Based Payments

  

  Online and mobile payments get all the press, but plenty of card-not-present payments still originate from telephone orders. The security threats from such orders are changing, which prompted the PCI Security Standards Council to issue an update Wednesday to guidance it first produced seven years ago for protecting phone-based payments. …