Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Some 61% of consumers surveyed in the fourth quarter by New York City-based Auriemma Consulting Group cited a debit card as their most frequently used card, up from 52% a year earlier. Only 24% named a credit card, down from 35% at the end of 2016. “Based on our consumer …
February, 2018
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19 February
Wire Fraud-Prevention Firm Debuts and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/19/18
BuyerDocs has been formed to secure wires for down payments made by home buyers from hacking, phishing, imposters, and spoofing. Wire fraud plundered approximately $1 billion from the real-estate industry in 2017, the company says. The Smart Payment Association and payment card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc. announced that CPI …
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16 February
Senators’ Letter on Pot Won’t Sway Card Networks, But Could Parry Sessions’s Thrust
The efforts of 18 U.S. senators to persuade the Senate Appropriations Committee to honor state laws for legal cannabis are not expected to sway Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. to drop their prohibitions on marijuana-related purchases over their networks. Earlier this week, a group spearheaded by Sens. Michael Bennett (D) …
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16 February
POS Malware Hides in Plain Sight; 18 Senators Vs. Jeff Sessions; Plus Weekly Recap from 2/16/18
The cryptocurrency Litecoin was still riding high Friday morning following a mid-week announcement that a new entity called LitePay Inc. will provide merchant processing in 41 countries, including the United States, starting Feb. 26. As of mid-morning, Litecoin traded at $220, up 38% from $160 at noon Tuesday. Also this …
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15 February
A New POS Software Malware Strain Avoids Detection By Fitting in With the Crowd
A new point-of-sale software malware strain wants its victims to think it is a nondescript bit of code that computers and networks commonly use when surfing the Internet. Uncovered by investigators at Austin, Texas-based Forcepoint, a data-security services provider, the malware, dubbed “UDPos” by Forcepoint, attempts to conceal itself in …
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15 February
U.S. Bank To Pay $613 Million in Penalties and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/15/18
The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. and the PCI Security Standards Council announced they will jointly develop a unified PIN-security standard. Currently each organization maintains a separate standard for PIN use, which could result in an entity being subject to one or both of the existing standards. The joint effort …
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15 February
Operation Choke Point Lives on in Actions by Other Federal Agencies, ETA Chief Warns
While the U.S. Department of Justice’s Operation Choke Point initiative ended last year, over-zealous efforts by other federal agencies threaten law-abiding payments companies in the same way Choke Point did, the chief executive of the Electronic Transactions Association warned Congress on Thursday. Testifying before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on …
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15 February
Eye on Acquiring: Shopify’s Volume Booms; North American Revenues Grow for Global Payments
More sales on its commerce platform and more payment-processing business from its merchants translated into a 71% revenue increase for Shopify Inc. in the fourth quarter. And the big merchant acquirer Global Payments Inc. reported Thursday that its North American revenues grew 9% in the quarter. Ottawa, Ontario-based Shopify, which …
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14 February
Currencycloud Eyes U.S. Expansion in Bid for More International Payments Volume
Currencycloud, an international payments platform based in the United Kingdom, has hired a U.S. general manager in a push to capture more cross-border payments volume from U.S. merchants. Currencycloud announced Richard Arundel as the general manager of Currencycloud North America. Arundel, a co-founder of Currencycloud, spent the past two years …
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14 February
As Players Jockey for Position, Faster Payments Will Total $650 Billion This Year
Last year, the Federal Reserve set a goal of having ubiquitous faster payments available in the United States by 2020, and now the first estimates are emerging of just how much dollar volume will flow across systems already in place and in progress. The total will come to $650 billion …