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May 18th, 2012
Edition #304
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In this Issue
In Other News
This Day in History 1920
Pope John Paul II Born
On May 18, 1920, Karol Jozef Wojtyla is born in the Polish town of Wadowice, 35 miles southwest of Krakow. Wojtyla went on to become Pope John Paul II, history's most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century. After high school, the future pope enrolled at Krakow's Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and literature and performed in a theater group. During World War II, Nazis occupied Krakow and closed the university, forcing Wojtyla to seek work in a quarry and, later, a chemical factory. By 1941, his mother, father, and only brother had all died, leaving him the sole surviving member of his family.
Although Wojtyla had been involved in the church his whole life, it was not until 1942 that he began seminary training. When the war ended, he returned to school at Jagiellonian to study theology, becoming an ordained priest in 1946. He went on to complete two doctorates and became a professor of moral theology and social ethics. On July 4, 1958, at the age of 38, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow by Pope Pius XII. He later became the city's archbishop, where he spoke out for religious freedom while the church began the Second Vatican Council, which would revolutionize Catholicism. Click here to read more.
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Digital Payments Pose a Serious Threat to Banks
5/18/12 The Economist  
Turn left off the main reception to PayPal’s offices in San Jose, open a nondescript door and you step into a garish living room dominated by a flat-screen television. This is a laboratory for what PayPal calls “couch commerce”: people sit in front of the television buying things with their mobile phones or tablet computers. Next door is a make-believe shopping mall complete with a mock hardware store, grocery and coffee shop. In each, consumers can order, buy and pay for things using their phones, or even just their phone numbers.
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Aggregation Offers Hope For Vending-Machine Debit Payments
5/14/12 ISO & Agent
Transaction aggregation eventually could save the vending-machine industry from the ravages of the Durbin amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, according to one processor of electronic payments from vending machines. New Federal Reserve Board rules the amendment prompted that roughly halved the interchange fee on most debit card transactions from an average of 23 cents from 43 cents last year also raised the cost for merchants processing small-ticket debit card transactions.
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Why Apple’s iWallet Won’t Have Anything To Do With NFC
5/17/12 Cult of Mac
The most commonly cited “magic” that NFC would bring to the iPhone would be the ability to use your device to pay for goods and services, just like a credit card. The only problem? Never going to happen, because Apple has already deployed its mobile payment solution, and it’s hidden inside every iPhone 4S that has already been sold. hat, at least, is the really quite excellent argument of Research Farm’s Pablo Saez Gil, who says Apple will eschew adopting NFC because it’s embraced Bluetooth 4.0.
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Starbucks Brews Loyalty with Mobile Payments
5/17/12 MSN
Recognized by U.S. News as one of America's Most Connected Companies for implementing the largest mobile-payment program in North America, Starbucks says the technology is boosting sales. Since the launch, customers have made 45 million mobile payments in the US and are now averaging a million transactions a week, says a company spokeswoman. She adds that Starbucks has experienced a ten-fold increase in mobile-payment use from March 2011 to March 2012.
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Coca-Cola and Foot Locker Among First ISIS Mobile Wallet Merchant Partners
5/15/12 The Verge
50 different local merchants will be working with ISIS in the service's two launch cities of Austin and Salt Lake City, including a number of restaurants, cafes, public transit options, and local sports clubs like the Utah Jazz and Salt Lake Bees. And in addition to the local partners, ISIS also announced that it has teamed up with several national merchants, which include Aéropostale, Coca-Cola, Champs, Dillard's, Foot Locker, Jamba Juice, and Macy's.
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Philly Fed Index, Economic Indicators Paint Grim Picture
5/17/12 CNBC
A gauge of future U.S. economic activity fell in April for the first time in seven months, according to an industry survey on Thursday, indicating a struggling economic recovery. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index decreased 0.1 percent to 95.5, the first drop in the monthly index since September 2011. The index rose 0.3 percent in March. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the index to increase 0.1 percent. "Growth is slow, but choppy, and consumers, executives and investors are looking for more progress."
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Global Breach Date Now Jan. 2011
5/16/12 Bank Info Security
Visa and MasterCard issued new alerts on May 15 that suggest the breach at payments processor Global Payments Inc. dates back to January 2011 - an exposure window significantly longer than what was originally reported when news of the breach surfaced in late March. Two card issuers have confirmed the updated advisories push the breach date back to Jan. 30, 2011. Visa's alerts in March indicated the breach occurred sometime between Jan. 21, 2012, and Feb. 25, 2012.
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Global Payments Breach Fueled Prepaid Card Fraud
5/16/12 KreebsOnSecurity
Debit card accounts stolen in a recent hacker break-in at card processor Global Payments have been showing up in fraud incidents at retailers in Las Vegas and elsewhere, according to officials from one bank impacted by the fraud. At the beginning of March 2012, Danbury, Conn. based Union Savings Bank began seeing an unusual pattern of fraud on a dozen or so debit cards it had issued, noting that most of the cards had recently been used in the same cafe at a nearby private school.
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Will Devices for Mobile Payments Pass PCI Test?
5/16/12 BTN
Mobile phones are becoming the Swiss Army knives of banking — mobility seems to present an almost infinite number of ways to extend financial services. Consider merchant acquisition. The opportunities for banks to offer on their own, or partner with providers, devices that attach to smartphones are so great that even the folks who are charged with producing security protocols for mobile payments are impressed.
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How Do We Cash In Virtual Currency?
5/15/12 BankThink
Virtual currency is prevalent in gaming, where users can deploy credits to continue using favorite social games or to buy virtual goods and powerups. But that's likely just the start. According to several market reports, virtual commerce is a $2.2 billion industry that's projected to grow to a whopping $6 billion in fewer than five years. It is the basis for business models such as Zynga, and it is a key catalyst in Facebook's impending IPO.
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PCI Council Urges P2P Encryption for Mobile Payments
5/16/12 Search Security
Merchants accepting mobile payments with a smartphone or tablet are being urged to use validated hardware that supports encryption, according to a new document issued today by the PCI Security Standards Council. Merchants can accept payments using mobile devices by using a point-to-point (P2P) encryption provider to meet the spirit of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), according to the new guidance document, Mobile Payment Acceptance Security.
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Smart Card Alliance Expands Industry Collaboration With Formation of Mobile and NFC Council
5/14/12 MarketWire
"Many think of payments when they hear NFC, but the technology opens the door to many industries for innovative applications, such as ticketing, digital content exchange, secure identification, social networking, and communication between electronic devices," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. "The Mobile and NFC Council will provide a bridge between NFC technologies and the industries who want to adopt NFC-enabled mobile devices to discuss and promote common standards and best practices."
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TSYS Unveils Its Agenda for Connected Mobility
5/16/12 TSYS
TSYS announced today its agenda for connected mobility to support commerce for digitally active consumers — those accustomed to navigating their daily lives with smart phones, tablets, game systems, electronic readers and computers. This initiative will enable consumers and businesses to connect and communicate in real time through a variety of devices that support mobility, business applications and commerce.
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VeriFone's SAIL Caught Copying Rival Square's User Agreement
5/16/12 GigaOm
Square is by now used to watching a parade of established payment companies try to duplicate its mobile payment system, including most recently VeriFone, which rolled out its SAIL platform earlier this month. However, while VeriFone’s actual credit-card swipe reader doesn’t look like Square’s dongle, it’s pretty clear Verifone used Square as a blueprint for its own service, going as far as to lift much of the language in its legal user agreement directly from Square’s merchant user agreement.
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PayPal and Coinstar Test a New Way to Help Consumers Unleash the Power of Cash and Coins
5/16/12 PayPal
While many of our competitors are focused on the mobile wallet—at PayPal we’re busy bringing our users an array of commerce solutions in both the online and offline worlds. We are doing this from your PayPal account online, to connected devices like Xbox, using PayPal in-store at The Home Depot and of course, the smartphone. In short, we’re making money work better in today’s multi-channel shopping environment. It’s time to “think outside the phone,” so to speak.
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Paymetric, Inc. Deploys Secure Mobile Payments
5/15/12 Paymetric
Paymetric Inc., a leading provider of integrated and secure enterprise payment acceptance solutions, announced today it has partnered with Velocitor Solutions, a software solutions firm specializing in mobile and wireless applications, to offer merchants with mobile sales forces, a solution to secure payment transactions from their mobile devices. The solution leverages Paymetric’s Data Intercept technology to tokenize payment card data that is captured by field sales representatives using Velocitor’s V.Mobile solution.
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Evertec First Quarter 2012 Results
5/15/12 GreenSheet
"We are pleased to report continued strong consolidated Adjusted EBITDA growth and revenue increases across our business lines,” said Peter Harrington, EVERTEC’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our first quarter 2012 results demonstrate both the increased penetration of our products and services within new and existing markets as well as the operating leverage inherent in our highly scalable, leading technology platform. Going forward we continue to believe we are well positioned to expand into additional Latin American markets.”
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Ingenico & POS Portal Lead the Way in Providing ISOs and Merchants With secured & mobile POS Devices
5/14/12 Ingenico
Ingenico and POS Portal announced that the distributor has selected Ingenico’s new generation Telium series point-of-sale (POS) products for sale and distribution to its independent sales organizations (ISOs) in the United States. With the eminent migration to EMV chip-based contact and contactless payments in the U.S., the two companies made a pro-active decision to bring the latest Telium series POS devices, designed on the new Telium 2 technology architecture, into the U.S. marketplace.
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Mercury Payment Systems® Acquires Sundrop® Mobile
5/16/12 MPS
Mercury Payment Systems® today announced the acquisition of Sundrop® Mobile, a pioneer in mobile and social loyalty marketing. It marks Mercury's first acquisition since its founding in 2001, as well as the first card-less mobile loyalty program integrated with payment processing. "Sundrop's forward-thinking loyalty product is seamlessly integrated to point-of -sale (POS) systems, making it a perfect match for Mercury," said Matt Taylor, Chief Executive Officer.
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Facebook Raises $16 Billion in I.P.O.
5/17/12 Dealbook
As investors raced to get shares, the sprawling social network raised $16 billion on Thursday, in an initial public offering that valued Facebook at $104 billion. The I.P.O. signals a rapid evolution for the company. In just eight years, Facebook has gone from a scrappy college service founded in a Harvard dormitory to the third-largest public offering in the history of the United States, behind General Motors and Visa. Investors, who are paying $38 a share for the offering, now consider Facebook more stalwart than start-up.
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