Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

February, 2019

• 8 February

  Eye on M&A: Visa Heats up the Bidding War Over Earthport; Clearent Picks up Coolfront

  

  The tug-of-war over Earthport PLC continues. Visa Inc. upped its offer for the British business-to-business payment processor in a bidding war that started after Mastercard Inc. topped Visa’s original price. Visa is now offering 37 pence per share, which values the company at £247 million ($320.4 million). Visa’s new offer …
• 8 February

  Mastercard’s Melody and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/8/19

  

  Mastercard Inc. introduced a so-called sonic brand identity, including a melody that will play when users deploy Mastercard in physical, digital, or voice commerce. Wells Fargo & Co. said late Thursday that its ATMs were back in service after an outage affected the bank’s ATMs, online and mobile banking services, …
• 7 February

  Three Weeks From the Announcement, Fiserv Clients Are ‘Incredibly Positive’ About First Data Deal

  

  Twenty-two days of talking to clients haven’t dampened Fiserv Inc.’s conviction that offering to buy First Data Corp. is the right move. In fact, if anything these conversations seem to have buoyed top executives’ confidence in the proposed $22 billion all-stock acquisition of the big processor. “We’ve spent a substantial …
• 7 February

  USA Technologies Suffers a Setback in Its Effort To Escape the Shadow of Accounting Problems

  Shares of USA Technologies Inc. lost half their value Thursday morning on news that the vending-machine payments provider’s auditor had resigned and that some of the company’s previous financial statements are unreliable. In a Feb. 1 letter to the audit committee of USAT’s board of directors, Chicago-based auditor RSM US …
• 7 February

  Payfac Segpay Adds Traditional Merchant Accounts and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/7/19

  

  Segpay Corp. debuted its Merchant Services Group, which is tasked with direct merchant-account placement, gateway, and other services for e-commerce merchants. Segpay has operated as a payment facilitator since 2005. A subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee will have a hearing at 2 p.m. Est. Feb. …
• 6 February

  A Devilishly Clever Trojan Plagues Banks, Card Issuers, Online Retailers, And Many More, IBM Says

  

  As if retailers and merchants didn’t have anything else to worry about, a malware threat called IcedID wants to set itself off as a special type, says a researcher at IBM Corp. In a blog post released Wednesday, the researcher says the criminal gangs using IcedID—disovered and named by IBM …
• 6 February

  First Data’s North American Merchant Revenues Grew 7% in 2018’s Fourth Quarter

  

  Merchant-processing revenues from North America grew 7% year-over-year in 2018’s fourth quarter to $1.1 billion on a comparable accounting basis, First Data Corp. reported Wednesday. First Data, which has an agreement to be acquired by processor Fiserv Inc. in a $22 billion all-stock deal, reported total quarterly revenues of $1.42 …
• 6 February

  As the Fiserv-First Data Behemoth Looms, Jack Henry Issues a Subtle Warning

  

  With the proposed merger of processing giants First Data Corp. and Fiserv Inc. looming over the payments landscape, players that both work and compete with the two companies are in a potentially ticklish position. But the chief executive of one such company made it clear Wednesday morning that First Data …
• 6 February

  Mastercard Names Platform Head and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/6/19

  

  Mastercard Inc. named Paul Stoddart, who had been CEO of Vocalink after Mastercard acquired the U.K.-based real-time payments firm in 2017, as president, New Payment Platforms, effective March 1. Stoddart will oversee development of Mastercard’s real-time capabilities beyond traditional card-based services, including Vocalink, the Homesend joint venture, and Mastercard Send. …
• 5 February

  Eye on PayPal: Credit Volume Hits $50 Billion; Venmo Adds Music Streaming Service Tidal as Biller

  

  PayPal Holdings Inc. says it has lent $50 billion to American consumers since it bought the BillMeLater lending service 11 years ago. The company also advanced its efforts to generate revenues from its Venmo peer-to-peer payment service by making subscription payments to the Tidal music-streaming service available through Venmo. Now …