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Feb 17th, 2012
Edition #291
New to NewsFilter? Click here to subscribe. In this Issue In Other News This Day in History 1801 Thomas Jefferson is Elected On this day in 1801, Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States. The election constitutes the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in the United States. By 1800, when he decided to run for president, Thomas Jefferson possessed impressive political credentials and was well-suited to the presidency. In addition to drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had served in two Continental Congresses, as minister to France, as secretary of state under George Washington and as John Adams' vice president. Vicious partisan warfare characterized the campaign of 1800 between Democratic-Republicans Jefferson and Aaron Burr and Federalists John Adams, Charles C. Pinckney and John Jay. The election highlighted the ongoing battle between Democratic-Republican supporters of the French, who were embroiled in their own bloody revolution, and the pro-British Federalists who wanted to implement English-style policies in American government. The Federalists abhorred the French revolutionaries' overzealous use of the guillotine and as a result were less forgiving in their foreign policy toward the French. Click here to read more.
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Visa Executive Throws Down Gauntlet; Slams PayPal In-Store Service 
2/15/12 MarketWatch A Visa Inc. executive criticized PayPal's mobile-payment system Wednesday, suggesting a service the online payment provider is testing at some Home Depot Inc. stores could open customers up to fraud. The comments underscore the high stakes traditional credit-card companies are placing on digital payments, a market also being targeted by the likes of technology giants Google Inc., PayPal parent eBay Inc. and Verizon Wireless. Visa is testing its own "digital wallet" service that could be used to make purchases online and on mobile devices. PayPal Rebuttal: Your Data Is More Secure in Our Mighty Cloud Than in Your Pocket 
2/16/12 All Things Digital Visa’s global head of product, Jim McCarthy, criticized PayPal’s new in-store payments service at a Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, saying he believes there are “real issues” around security when it comes to the PayPal service. PayPal’s response? With PayPal, the company said as part of a lengthy statement, your financial information can’t be lost or stolen from your wallet, your card or on your phone — and it’s safer in PayPal’s cloud than in your pocket. Acquirers Await Details Of Visa’s New Fee
2/15/12 ISO&Agent In what could mark the beginning of the post-Durbin fee shakeups, merchant acquirers should soon learn the details of Visa Inc.’s new fixed acquirer network-participation fee. The next step for acquirers, which would seem likely to pass along the cost to their merchant clients, would be to explain what the retailers get for the added expense. Merchants, who already have a long list of expenses that include the fairly recent Payment Card Industry data security compliance fees and IRS 1099-K reporting fees, may balk at yet another assessment, some observers contend. Leading Economic Indicators Rise 0.4%
2/17/12 Bloomberg The index of U.S. leading indicators rose in January for a fourth month, signaling the world’s largest economy will keep expanding through the first half of 2012. The Conference Board’s gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months climbed 0.4 percent after a revised 0.5 percent gain in December that was more than initially reported, the New York-based group said today. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for an increase of 0.5 percent. TSG Metrics: Merchant Acquiring M&A Multiples
2/17/12 PaymentsPulse Recent research conducted by TSG Metrics, the strategic research and analysis arm of The Strawhecker Group (TSG), suggests that the market for strategic acquisitions in the merchant acquiring space continues to generate interest from entities both inside and outside the industry. Though data in the charts suggest that obtaining an above average net revenue multiple can be a relatively rare occurrence recent trends would indicate that merchant acquiring properties have been attracting these rare occurrences more frequently. The current three year rolling average merchant acquiring net revenue multiple is approximately 2.75 times above what it was in 1990. Click here for TSG's Merchant Acquiring M&A Multiples Slide Prepaid Debit Card Portfolio Sales to Rise This Year, Analyst Forecasts
2/14/12 American Banker The emergence of several new prepaid debit card programs and growing national distribution of major prepaid card brands is helping to generate marketplace interest in buying and selling prepaid card portfolios. For the first time this year, prepaid debit cards will register on the card portfolio sales radar as several prepaid card portfolios change hands in what has been a small and cloistered market, consultancy R.K. Hammer predicts. Some six prepaid card portfolios will change hands this year. Facebook Seeks New Revenues with a Promotion for Its Virtual Currency
2/16/12 Digital Transactions Behind all the buzz about social payments and virtual currency is an often-overlooked fact: few social-network members today actually use digital money. The antidote for this ailment, according to executives in the social-networking world, is something they call monetization, which is simply a term for tactics that generate revenues from those who visit a network and play online games but don’t buy anything. And Facebook Inc., by far the biggest social network, is trying to do just that with its Facebook Credits. Collection and Credit Firms Facing Broad New Oversight
2/16/12 DealBook Large debt collectors and credit reporting companies would face regular federal oversight for the first time under a broad new proposal announced on Thursday by the consumer finance watchdog. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a draft rule that would allow the agency to supervise two significant corners of the financial industry that until now have largely evaded federal scrutiny. The draft, which limits the parameters of the new powers to the largest debt collection and credit reporting players, is the most significant proposal yet to emerge from the agency. PayPal Partnering with Banks to Attract New Customers
2/15/12 BTN PayPal Inc., with 106.3 million active users, clearly has no trouble signing up consumer accounts. But it is now partnering with banks to sign up even more. Users who sign up for PayPal accounts can fund them from any bank account they choose — or they can ignore their bank and use a store-bought MoneyPak from Green Dot Corp. PayPal's new partnerships allow banks to avoid disintermediation by ensuring their own accounts are funding customers' PayPal purchases. Chirpify Launches Twitter Commerce Payment Platform
2/15/12 GreenSheet Chirpify, the easy way to exchange money via Twitter, today announced the launch of its Twitter Commerce platform, allowing brands and merchants to buy, sell, donate and transact on Twitter. Formerly known as Sell Simply, Chirpify enables direct, or person-to-person, payments and donations in addition to its retail sales platform. For the first time ever, brands and retailers are able to use Twitter as a direct sales channel. By offering organizations a simple way to turn Tweets into transactions, Chirpify opens up a meaningful new channel. Effects of Credit Scores on Consumer Payment Choice
2/16/12 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston This paper investigates the effects of credit scores on consumer payment behavior, especially on debit and credit card use. Anecdotally, a negative relationship between debit card use and credit score has been reported; however, it is not clear whether that relationship is related to other factors, such as education or income, or whether it is a mere correlation. We use a new consumer survey dataset to examine whether this negative relationship holds after controlling for various consumer characteristics. What’s In A Name? For ISIS, Apparently, No Respect
2/16/12 StorefrontBacktalk Hewlett-Packard announced a new open-source Web browser for mobile devices on Tuesday (Feb. 14). It’s name? Isis. That’s the latest slap for ISIS, the mobile payment initiative backed by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile—apparently HP didn’t even wonder if anyone had trademarked “Isis” as the name for a mobile app (yes, ISIS has). It’s especially worrisome with ISIS now slipping into third place in the mobile payment horse race behind Google and PayPal, which are both already taking payments. Could Google Wallet be Google's Next Failure?
2/14/12 CNET Two-thousand and twelve was so supposed to be the year of the digital wallet. And Google was supposed to lead the way. But it looks like the Google Wallet app has gotten off to a bumpy start. Six months after Google introduced Google Wallet, the app, enabled by near-field communications, or NFC technology, is still struggling to find carrier and device partners, as well as, retailers willing to support the new technology. And last week, the company temporarily took part of the Google Wallet application offline while the company figured out how to fix a security issue. NFC vs. Cloud-Based Payments: Which will Reach Scale First?
2/14/12 Mobile Commerce Daily Following a flurry of announcements around NFC-enabled mobile payments last year from Google and Isis, there has been very little news on the NFC front so far this year while cloud-based payments such as is offered by PayPal appear to be picking up some steam. Google’s NFC-enabled mobile wallet took a hit this week when the company said it would suspend new prepaid cards for Google Wallet after security flaws were detected in the app that make users’ information vulnerable. At the same, there is growing interest in cloud-based solutions that address some of the issues with NFC. TSYS Acquiring Solutions Now Processing American Express OnePoint® Transactions
2/16/12 TSYS TSYS announced today that both its front-end authorization and capture as well as back-end clearing and settlement platforms are now enabled to process American Express OnePoint transactions. American Express OnePoint is a cost-effective and all-in-one solution that enables small to mid-size merchants the convenience of a single source for statements, settlement and customer service for all major card brands. InspirePay Embeds Dwolla's Payment Network and Adds PayPal to its List of Payment Providers
2/15/12 Reuters Two like-minded companies, InspirePay and Dwolla, have come together to disrupt the credit card industry and shift the power back to the people. Together, Dwolla and InspirePay are challenging the status quo. InspirePay is already the leading payments aggregator; enabling merchants to offer multiple payment options to their customers though a simple, elegant, brand-able interface. This encourages competition among payments providers, driving down the transactions costs for the users. NetSpend Activates PayPal Pre-Paid MasterCard
2/14/12 NetSpend NetSpend Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of general-purpose reloadable prepaid debit cards and related financial services, today announced the launch of the PayPal Prepaid MasterCard®. "PayPal has chosen us to be the exclusive program and distribution manager and processor for their GPR card," said Dan Henry, chief executive officer of NetSpend. "We are marketing the PayPal prepaid card online and through our direct mail channels. Payment Processing, Inc. Will Now Be Known As "PayPros"
2/14/12 PayPros “PayPros” has been announced as the new registered trade name for Payment Processing, Inc. (PPI), the industry leader for integrated payment processing. The change in name reflects the company’s cultivation of its position as a dominant player in payments technology, products and services. The past several years have seen the acceleration of PayPros’ investment in technology development, resulting in the delivery of next-generation payment solutions. WePay Rang in 2012 With Over One Payment Per Minute
2/14/12 Marketwire WePay, the hassle free way to collect payments online, today announced significant growth for the year 2011. The company grew nearly ten times in revenue and achieved outstanding growth in user base and total payment volume -- a trend that the company expects to continue throughout 2012. Headcount also doubled in size last year with 20 new employees. WePay plans to at least double again this year to maintain its superior customer service and top tier engineering. FIS Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Results
2/13/12 FIS Revenue from continuing operations increased 7.0% to $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 and increased 4.9% on an organic basis. GAAP net earnings from continuing operations attributable to common stockholders totaled $123.0 million, or $0.41 per diluted share, compared to $121.3 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, in the prior year quarter. U.S. Bank Ranked Number One for Overall Customer Experience in Keynote Study of Credit Card Websites
2/13/12 BusinessWire U.S. Bank has earned top honors from Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems Inc., (Nasdaq: KEYN), for best “Overall Customer Experience” in the 2012 Keynote Online Customer Experience Rankings for Credit Card Prospects. U.S. Bank earned the title because it placed first in two of the four indices measured -- customer satisfaction and online adoption. Debit Reform's Impact on Small, Big Banks Realized
2/14/12 CSN Many remained skeptical that the exemption for small banks would result in any savings. Now, at least one news report confirms that it has. According to American Banker, earnings at banks with assets of less than $10 billion appear to have been entirely untouched by the cap in the first quarter since its Oct. 1 implementation. Revenue from swipe fee at banks identified as exempt rose a few tenths of a percentage from the third quarter to about $507M in the fourth quarter. Bank of America Clarifies Breach
2/16/12 Bank Info Security Bank of America now says the suspected breach of credit card data it reported earlier this month is likely linked to a third-party merchant - not a third-party service provider. In response to previous coverage of the breach, the bank clarified the suspected source, adding that the incident was isolated. "This would have been an isolated incident at a third-party merchant (like a store) that may have impacted a very small number of cards, not a security breach at Bank of America or one of its vendors." |
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