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May 25th, 2012

Edition #305

 

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In this Issue

Groupon is Testing a Payments Offering to Compete with Square and PayPal
Google Closes $12.9B Deal for Motorola Mobility
U.S. Consumer Bureau Seeks Comments on Prepaid Debit Card Rules
Wells Fargo Launches ClearXchange P2P Payments Service
Payment Device Manufacturers See Opportunity in Chip and PIN Mandates
GoPayment Survey Estimates $100 Billion in Missed Sales for Small Businesses that Deny Plastic
PayPal Partners with VeriFone, Equinox to Accept Mobile Payments In-Store
Facebook IPO: Wall Street's Losses Mount
MasterCard Calls for Collaboration on EMV
Dodd-Frank Fulfills a Century-Old Vision for Regulation
Litle & Co. Announces Data Indicating Merchants Are Experiencing Savings from Durbin Amendment
Weekly Jobless Claims Fall Slightly
American Express Uses Zynga’s FarmVille To Lure New Prepaid Card Users
PayPal is Nice for Web Sites, But Better for Mobile
GoPayment Uses Geolocation to Help Small Businesses Determine Local Sales Tax
MasterCard Loses Card Fee Challenge, Visa Europe Next
Ingenico and Vantiv Partner for EMV, NFC Mobile and Secure Encrypted Payments in U.S. Marketplace
First Data Receives Two Best in Category Awards at Inaugural CNP Awards
NPC Signs Preferred Provider Contract with Strategic Payment Systems
Target Rollout Is Validation for Shopkick Mobile Rewards Tech
Taco Bell, BK and Others Eat Up Social Currency
PULSE Reports Weak PINs, Habits Increase Fraud Risk
Obama Unveils Mobile Tech Strategy
SAP VP Caught Doing Very Original Research On Retail Security: Barcode-Swapping At Target


In Other News

This Day in History 1977

Star Wars Opens

On this day in 1977, Memorial Day weekend opens with an intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas' blockbuster Star Wars movies hits American theaters.

The incredible success of Star Wars--it received seven Oscars, and earned $461 million in U.S. ticket sales and a gross of close to $800 million worldwide--began with an extensive, coordinated marketing push by Lucas and his studio, 20th Century Fox, months before the movie's release date. "It wasn't like a movie opening," actress Carrie Fisher, who played rebel leader Princess Leia, later told Time magazine. "It was like an earthquake." Beginning with--in Fisher's words--"a new order of geeks, enthusiastic young people with sleeping bags," the anticipation of a revolutionary movie-watching experience spread like wildfire, causing long lines in front of movie theaters across the country and around the world.

With its groundbreaking special effects, Star Wars leaped off screens and immersed audiences in "a galaxy far, far away." By now everyone knows the story, which followed the baby-faced Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) as he enlisted a team of allies--including hunky Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and the robots C3PO and R2D2--on his mission to rescue the kidnapped Princess Leia from an Evil Empire governed by Darth Vader. Click here to read more.

 

 

TSG Fun Fact

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Groupon is Testing a Payments Offering to Compete with Square and PayPal

5/24/12 VB  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Groupon is testing out an offering of its own in the increasingly crowded payments space, according to an email I was forwarded by a business that was solicited for the service. The pricing is extremely aggressive, with a 1.8% transaction fee and a 15 cent per transaction charge for transactions processed through the terminal. Square charges 2.75% with no per transaction fee. PayPal Here and Verifone Sail charge 2.7%, also with no transaction fee.

Google Closes $12.9B Deal for Motorola Mobility

5/25/12 Chicago Tribune Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Google said Tuesday that it has closed its $12.9 billion acquisition of Libertyville-based Motorola Mobility, a deal that outfits the search giant with a robust smartphone patent portfolio and the ability to build mobile devices that are tightly integrated with Google services. "Motorola is a great American tech company, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation," Google Chief Executive Larry Page said in a statement.

U.S. Consumer Bureau Seeks Comments on Prepaid Debit Card Rules

5/23/12 BusinessWeek  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking comment on what should be included in a forthcoming regulation on prepaid debit cards. “Right now, prepaid cards have far fewer regulatory protections than bank accounts or debit or credit cards,” the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, said. Rules on prepaid cards could squeeze the revenue that companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) (WMT), Green Dot Corp. (GDOT) (GDOT) and NetSpend Holdings Inc. (NTSP) (NTSP) collect.

Wells Fargo Launches ClearXchange P2P Payments Service

5/24/12 American Banker  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Wells Fargo is launching a person-to-person payment system based on the clearXchange service formed last year by the major banks. Wells Fargo (WFC) said May 24 that it is offering consumers a service it calls Send & Receive Money, which allows users to send money to someone else if they have that recipient's email address or mobile phone number.

Payment Device Manufacturers See Opportunity in Chip and PIN Mandates

5/24/12 BTN  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

The big card associations are putting pressure on merchants and merchant acquirers to get on board with international chip and PIN card payment standards or face a major loss of business and increase in liability for noncompliance. Suppliers of the tools that enable point of sale, contactless, or NFC payments are sniffing opportunity, and are actively touting their technology and entering into partnerships in an attempt to sell smooth compliance.

GoPayment Survey Estimates $100 Billion in Missed Sales for Small Businesses that Deny Plastic

5/22/12 MarketWatch  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

According to a recent Intuit Inc. GoPayment survey, 55 percent of the nation's 27 million small businesses do not accept credit cards. Those nearly 15 million U.S. small businesses potentially miss out on $100 billion in sales annually. To help small businesses never miss a sale, GoPayment today launched a national video sweepstakes to "Get Business Growing" with chances to win up to $10,000.

PayPal Partners with VeriFone, Equinox to Accept Mobile Payments In-Store

5/24/12 VentureBeat  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

At an event at eBay’s headquarters Thursday, online and mobile payment company PayPal announced partnerships with several point of sale system companies to integrate mobile check ins, electronic receipts, and PayPal integrated cash registers. “In-store payments are a natural extension of what we’ve done. As mobile has become important, retailers have gotten interested in how they can use mobile as a connective tissue the consumer,” said PayPal’s vice president of retail Don Kingsborough in an interview with VentureBeat.

Facebook IPO: Wall Street's Losses Mount

5/25/12 CNN Money  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Nasdaq's glitch on Facebook's opening day is costing Wall Street firms millions of dollars, and that tally will probably rise before the saga is over. Two firms that execute trades on behalf of buyers and sellers of stocks say they've lost between $60 million and $70 million because of Nasdaq's (NDAQ) problems getting orders through its system shortly after Facebook (FB) started trading last Friday.

MasterCard Calls for Collaboration on EMV

5/21/12 ISO & Agent  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

MasterCard today made the first move to begin talking with rivals and customers about exactly how the U.S. will adopt the EMV chip-card standard. Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard on May 21 announced plans to start a broad, cross-industry group to collaborate on the U.S. EMV conversion, pulling card networks, issuers, merchants, acquirers, processors, terminal makers, card manufacturers and other players together in discussions to resolve critical questions.

Dodd-Frank Fulfills a Century-Old Vision for Regulation

5/24/12 BankThink  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Traditionally Americans have opposed the establishment of single governmental body with jurisdiction over all aspects of the financial system. Instead we have favored a decentralized system with different regulatory agencies for different types of financial activities and institutions. This approach has just ended, with little notice. The Dodd-Frank Act has created a single government body, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, with jurisdiction over all major financial activities and firms.

Litle & Co. Announces Data Indicating Merchants Are Experiencing Savings from Durbin Amendment

5/23/12 Litle & Co  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Litle & Co., a leading payment processing company for consumer-direct brands, today released data highlighting the typical savings experience its merchants are realizing from the Durbin Amendment’s regulated interchange rates. Looking at its own merchant base, Litle data suggest that overall the Durbin Amendment has been effective at reducing interchange fees charged on debit card transactions, with an approximately 50% decrease in total interchange fees charged on Visa and MasterCard debit cards.

Weekly Jobless Claims Fall Slightly

5/24/12 Fox Business  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, government data on Thursday showed, suggesting the labor market continues to expand at a moderate pace. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 370,000, the Labor Department said. The prior week's figure was revised up to 372,000 from the previously reported 370,000.

American Express Uses Zynga’s FarmVille To Lure New Prepaid Card Users

5/22/12 Tech Crunch  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

American Express, which has long been known for catering to high-end consumers, is moving downmarket. They’ve got a new platform called Serve, which is kind of a catchall service that supports many payment methods from traditional plastic cards with magnetic stripes to NFC to QR codes to basic online payments. The partnership with Zynga is meant to onboard new Amex customers and could give the credit card company the so-called FarmVille demographic.

PayPal is Nice for Web Sites, But Better for Mobile

5/21/12 Internet Retailer  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Consumers will use PayPal, Google Checkout and other payment methods other than plastic for 23% of e-commerce transactions in 2016, up from 20% today, according to Forrester Research Inc. Its report, “U.S. Alternative Payments Forecast, 2011 to 2016,” says non-card payments will account for $110 billion worth of e-commerce transactions in 2016, up from $64 billion this year. Forrester estimates that consumers will spend $327 billion with online retailers in 2016, up from $226 billion this year.

GoPayment Uses Geolocation to Help Small Businesses Determine Local Sales Tax

5/24/12 BusinessWire  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Small businesses on the go want to focus on making sales – not worry or waste time looking up local sales tax rates. To help with this, Intuit Inc. today announced that its GoPayment mobile credit card payment offering is among the first to provide geolocation-based sales tax calculations. Using this technology, GoPayment helps small businesses get paid confidently wherever they are by accurately calculating taxes based on the precise location of a sale, taking into account the city, state and municipal tax codes, as well as special tax districts.

MasterCard Loses Card Fee Challenge, Visa Europe Next

5/24/12 Reuters  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Mastercard lost a challenge to an EU ban on its cross-border card fees in a ruling that puts rival Visa Europe squarely in the sights of European regulators over its charges. Europe's second-highest court on Thursday upheld a 2007 decision by the European Commission which was triggered by retailers' gripes about the world's second-largest credit and debit card network.

Ingenico and Vantiv Partner for EMV, NFC Mobile and Secure Encrypted Payments in U.S. Marketplace

5/23/12 Marketwire  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Ingenico, leading worldwide provider of payment solutions, and Vantiv, Inc., a leading provider of payment processing services and related technology solutions for financial institutions of all sizes, announced today that the processor has chosen Ingenico's new generation Telium series point-of-sale (POS) products coupled with Vantiv point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution for marketing and sale to its financial institution and merchant customers in the United States.

First Data Receives Two Best in Category Awards at Inaugural CNP Awards

5/23/12 First Data  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

First Data Corporation, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment processing, announced today that it was chosen as a 2012 Card-not-Present (CNP) Awards Best in Category/Judge’s Choice winner for Best Processor, and with Google, Best Mobile Solution for Google Wallet. This year marks CardNotPresent.com’s inaugural CNP Awards, the very first awards honoring the companies, programs and solutions that have distinguished themselves in the card not present space during the past year.

NPC Signs Preferred Provider Contract with Strategic Payment Systems

5/21/12 PR Newswire  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

NPC, a Vantiv, Inc. subsidiary, is pleased to announce that it has recently signed a new long term preferred provider Independent Sales Organization (ISO) contract with Strategic Payment Systems (SPS) for the provision of debit and credit card processing services to merchants.   NPC additionally arranged long term financing for SPS. "We are extremely excited about our expanded and long term relationship with NPC," commented Rick Pylant, Chairman of Strategic Payment Systems and Immediate Past-President of the ETA Board of Directors.

Target Rollout Is Validation for Shopkick Mobile Rewards Tech

5/23/12 EON  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Target is pleased to announce that it is now the largest retailer to offer its guests the shopkick app via their smart phones. Starting today, Target guests nationwide can earn points for shopping at Target that can be redeemed for a variety of rewards. “We’ve learned from our guests that they appreciate being rewarded for doing what they already love to do -- shopping at Target.”

Taco Bell, BK and Others Eat Up Social Currency

5/22/12 ClickZ  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

Plink's recent campaigns with major retailers like Taco Bell and Burger King may provide a glimpse into what other new niche entrants can expect with their virtual currency loyalty programs. Consumers using Plink's three-month-old platform - which rewards retail purchases with Facebook Credits - are spending 65 percent more than before at participating brands while visiting twice a month instead of once, according to the technology firm.

PULSE Reports Weak PINs, Habits Increase Fraud Risk

5/22/12 The Street  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

How people choose their ATM and debit card personal identification numbers (PINs) could predict how easily their accounts may be struck by fraud, according to a recent security study. That’s one reason why PULSE, one of the nation’s leading debit/ATM networks, recognizes ATM & Debit Card Safety Awareness Month each June. “It’s no secret that weak PINs such as a birthday or repeating or sequential numbers contribute to card fraud.”

Obama Unveils Mobile Tech Strategy

5/23/12 BankInfoSecurity  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

The Obama Administration, acknowledging the explosion in mobile technology, has unveiled a "digital government" strategy that requires every federal agency to make at least two services available to the public via mobile applications within a year. The strategy emphasizes the importance of addressing privacy issues as the government takes greater advantage of the latest advances in information technology.

SAP VP Caught Doing Very Original Research On Retail Security: Barcode-Swapping At Target

5/23/12 StorefrontBacktalk  Facebook Like Button  Tweet Button

When an SAP Labs VP was arrested this week—charged with multiple burglary counts for supposedly sticking fake barcodes on Lego sets in California Target stores—it was a wonderful reminder of how vulnerable today’s barcode security is.

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