Payments News
Payments News ISSN 1556-4487. Compilation Copyright © Glenbrook Partners LLC, 2002-2010. All Rights Reserved.
Webbadress: http://www.paymentsnews.com/
Uppdaterad: 55 min 45 sek gammalt
Internet Crooks Craft Creative Counterfeiting Scam
Check fraud seems so old fashioned these days. But as this story points out, "these hackers got the account information in an unusual way: They broke into three websites that specialize in a little-known type of business — archiving check images online."
Headline News - July 29, 2010
Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners:
- MasterCard and Smart Hub Appoint Tara Nathan to Lead Global Joint Venture
- BBVA Compass Extends Multi-Year Contract for CheckFree Bill Payment Solution
- Citi Extends Industry-leading Commercial Card Global Footprint
- Bunker-busting ATM attacks show security holes
- Digital Transactions: The Emerging Case for a Rules Change to Force Same-Day ACH
- Huffington Post: Sam Shrauger: Direct Monetization of Digital Content
- NetBanker: Flash Marketing Addendum: Co-branded Payments
Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers seeking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.
Visa Reports Fiscal Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results
Visa has announced financial results for its fiscal third quarter 2010 ended June 30, 2010 with GAAP net operating revenue in the fiscal third quarter of 2010 of $2.0 billion, an increase of 23% over the prior year. According to Visa, revenue was "driven by strong contributions across all revenue categories, in particular data processing and international transaction revenues."
Some highlights:
- Payments volume growth, on a constant dollar basis for the three months ended March 31, 2009 on which fiscal third quarter service revenue is recognized, was a positive 13% over the prior year at $745 billion.
- Payments volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, for the three months ended June 30, 2010, was a positive 14% over the prior year at $803 billion.
- Cross border volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, was a positive 17% for the three months ended June 30, 2010.
- Total processed transactions, which represent transactions processed by VisaNet, for the three months ended June 30, 2010 totaled 11.7 billion, were a positive 14% increase over the prior year.
Cybercrime Fact or Fiction
Charles Jester has an interesting article in SC Magazine entitled "Cybercrime Fact or Fiction, Part 1: Banking Trojans and FinCEN Reporting" looking at the wide discrepancies in how payments fraud is reported. As Jester dryly points out "most statistics on cybercrime range from under $300 million lost per year to over $48 billion lost per year."
Amazon-Facebook Alliance to Make Shopping More Social
The New York Times has a short write up on the new Amazon-Facebook Alliance. When users link their Amazon and Facebook accounts, "They... see which of their Facebook friends have upcoming birthdays, and receive gift suggestions based on the music, books and movies those friends have said they like on Facebook and on their Amazon wish lists."
Headline News - July 28, 2010
Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners:
- New Celent Report: Payments Trends in South Korea
- Giftango Delivers Virtual Gift Cards for 35 National Brands
- MasterCard Teams with Acculynk to Give Issuers Option to Use PaySecure
- eWise Secures New Round of Funding Led by Balderton
- ProPay Launches ProtectPay Online Virtual Terminal
- Juniper Research: Mobile Commerce Awards Go To Mobiqa, mBlox, and eBay Mobile
- CHIPS Adds Fifth, Large Chinese Bank to Global Payments Network
- ATM Marketplace: Cardtronics extends ATM vault cash agreement with Wells Fargo
- PayPal Blog: Update on PayPal accounts for India users
- SFGate: Citigroup’s Semenchuk Quits as Ventures Unit Moves to Palo Alto
- Miami Herald: PayPal Making Belated Foray in Japan, Without eBay
Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers seeking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.
Open Identity Exchange and Kantara Initiative to Collaborate
Open Identity Exchange (OIX) and Kantara Initiative recently announced that they will begin collaborating on digital trust framework development to build and promote adoption of a robust online trust ecosystem. Digital trust frameworks enable trust in transactions such as logins, registrations, and online eCommerce by allowing digital identity credentials produced by one site to be accepted at other sites.
OIX executive members include AT&T, CA, Equifax, Google, PayPal, VeriSign, and Verizon.
Headline News - July 27, 2010
Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners:
- eBillme.com Provides Online Coupons For Additional Back-to-School Savings
- Fiserv Enables Online Banking Transformation for The Westpac Group
- Open Solutions Acquires The Weiland Financial Group
- MoneyGram International Expands Network in Paraguay
- Home Trust of Canada Selects Gemalto for EMV Migration
- vWorker Selects ThreatMetrix Fraud Network to Fight Fraud on Its Online Marketplace
- Elavon Appoints Mike Passilla President and CEO
- Inside Retailing: All Cashed Up: Keeping Cash Safe in Germany
- Forbes: Why Free Checking is on Life Support
- BAI Banking Strategies: Making Tracks for Mobile Payments
- The Wall Street Journal: Hong Kong's Cashless-Payment Operator Under Fire For Selling Personal Data
- Credit Union Times: NCUA Rules Spur New Vendor Management Businesses and New Savings
Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers seeking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.
Boston Fed Policy Paper: Who Gains and Who Loses from Credit Card Payments? Theory and Calibations
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has published a Public Policy Discussion Paper entitled "Who Gains and Who Loses from Credit Card Payments? Theory and Calibrations". From the abstract:
Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary transfer to credit card users from non-card (or “cash”) users because merchants generally do not set differential prices for card users to recoup the costs of fees and rewards. On average, each cash-using household pays $151 to card-using households and each card-using household receives $1,482 from cash users every year. Because credit card spending and rewards are positively correlated with household income, the payment instrument transfer also induces a regressive transfer from low-income to high-income households in general.
The paper is authored by Scott Schuh, Oz Shy, and Joanna Stavins.
MoneyGram Signs State Savings Bank of the Russian Federation
MoneyGram announced it has added the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank) to its network. Sberbank is the oldest and largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe and is expected to be MoneyGram’s largest agent in the region. The bank will introduce MoneyGram services initially in more than 7,000 locations.
Russia is the third largest send market in the world after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Countries that receive the most in remittances originating in Russia are: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Ukraine. Russia is also in the top 20 receive countries in remittances.
In related news, Western Union announced it will offer the Western Union® goCASH service across 6,500 Family Dollar store locations.
Survey Results: U.S. Market Contactless Terminal Penetration
Last week, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson asked the Payments Views community about its perception of contactless POS reader deployment in the US.
The results are in and you can see them here.
New Opportunities on PaymentsJobs.com
Several new positions for payments professionals have recently been posted to Glenbrook's PaymentsJobs.com job board:
- Reseller Channel Manager - Mercury Payment Systems - Denver, CO
- Product Manager - Mercury Payment Systems - Durango, CO
- Retail Payments Product Manager - The Members Group - Clive, IA
Headline News - July 26, 2010
Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners:
- The Wall Street Journal: Citi Discloses Security Flaw in Its iPhone App
- MediaPost News: Amazon Hits $1 Billion In M-Commerce In Last Year
- Bloomberg: Advent and Bain Said to Plan $2 Billion of LBO Loans to Bid for RBS Worldpay
- The Economic Times: M-banking May Soon Move Beyond Checking Account Status in India
- NetBanker: Future File: Digitizing Paper POS Receipts
- Bank Info Security: What it Takes to Fight Fraud
- The Epoch Times: Hong Kong Unveils New Notes to Battle Counterfeiting
- The Sacramento Bee: Short on Cash? Pay the Sitter via Your PC
- Fortune: The Real Reason Why Consumers Won't Pay Online
- The New York Times: Stop Payment. Now Stop It Again.
- Portals and Rails: Can Chip-and-PIN Technology Address Payment Card Fraud in the United States?
Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers seeking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.
American Express Announces Second Quarter 2010 Financial Results
American Express has reported financial results for the second quarter 2010. Net income was $1 billion, up significantly from $367 million a year ago. Worldwide average spending per proprietary basic cards-in-force of $3,288 increased 21% during the quarter or 20% on a constant currency basis. "Cardmember spending rose 16% and improved credit indicators continued the year-long trend that began last spring," said Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive officer.
Pew Report Finds Credit Cards More Transparent, Yet Problems Remain
Most of the practices deemed "unfair" or "deceptive" by the Federal Reserve have disappeared from new credit card offers since federal passage of the Credit CARD Act last year, according to a new report by the Pew Health Group's Safe Credit Cards Project. "Yet new trends have emerged that could cost cardholders significantly."
The report finds that issuers have eliminated practices such as "hair trigger" penalty rate increases (disproportionate charges for minor account violations), unfair payment allocation, and raising interest rates on existing balances. However, Pew's research also highlights a sharp rise in cash advance fees, continued widespread use of other penalty interest rates and an emerging trend of credit card companies failing to disclose penalty interest rates in their online terms and conditions.
Full details, including previous research, can be found at http://www.pewtrusts.org/creditcards.
Mobile Banking Steadily Gaining Acceptance Among U.S. Consumers
Mobile banking and the use of mobile devices for financial transactions and payments are increasingly gaining acceptance among U.S. consumers, according to results of a survey conducted by KPMG.
The results of KPMG's fourth annual Global Consumers and Convergence survey show that 19 percent of U.S. consumers have conducted banking transactions on a mobile device, compared to only 9 percent when KPMG last completed this survey 18 months ago. More than 5,600 people in 22 countries worldwide participated in the survey.
U.S. Bank Introduces ScoreBoard, an Online Payment Management Tool for Small Business
U.S. Bank has announced a new payment management tool, called ScoreBoard, that helps small businesses make smarter decisions about the financial operations of their business.
“ScoreBoard is unique because it gives our small business customers the ability to monitor their own spending and insight into how their sales trends compare to similar merchants in their business category,” said Pam Joseph, U.S. Bancorp Payment Services vice chair. “For our customers who have a U.S. Bank credit card and merchant account, the tool provides a comprehensive view of their business trends.”
Headline News - July 22, 2010
Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners:
- TSYS Announces Second Quarter 2010 Financial Results
- New Mintel Comperemedia Survey - Consumers Use Online Banking (but not to Pay Bills)
- Fiserv Online Thought Leadership Community Reaches Milestone of 6,000 Members in First Year
- ProPay Debuts Merchant Security and Risk Resources
- New Javelin Research Report - Same‐Day ACH: Is Half a Solution Better than None
- Digital Transactions: Square’s Founder Says the Main Act Is About To Begin
- NetBanker: Mobile Remote Deposit Capture by the Numbers (thanks USAA)
Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers seeking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.
A Look at PayPal's 2Q2010 Financial Results
PayPal's parent eBay announced financial results for the second quarter 2010 today.
eBay's Payments segment (including PayPal and BillMeLater) revenue was $817.0 million for the quarter, an increase of 22% year over year. Net total payment volume (TPV) for the quarter was $21.3 billion, an increase of 28% year over year, but flat from the previous quarter. In term of revenue mix, Merchant Services (the off-eBay business) represented 61% of TPV, up from 59% in the prior quarter.
PayPal's revenue ("transaction revenue rate") increased slightly to 3.60%, along with a slightly higher transaction processing expense rate of 1.17% and a record-low transaction loss rate of 0.17%. Active accounts (defined as active in the last 12 months) reached 87.2 MM, up 16% year over year.
Bill Me Later's volume for the quarter was unchanged at 1% of the total Payments segment payment volume. Net chargeoffs in the BML portfolio were 8.56%, down from 9.49% in the prior quarter.
PlaySpan and VGMarket Publish Comprehensive Report on Digital Goods Spending
PlaySpan has announced their 2010 VGMarket study on virtual goods spending, which contains some new information on both first and third-party purchases. According to the company, the main takeaway from the report is that social networking games are driving digital goods growth and women 25 and older spend a disproportionate amount on digital goods than their male counterparts.