Consumer confidence is keeping its momentum, up again in March thanks to positive attitudes toward the overall economy and sustained confidence in personal finances. The Discover U.S. Spending Monitor, a 4-year-old daily poll tracking economic confidence and spending intentions of nearly 8,200 consumers throughout the month, climbed 1.6 points to 96.5. The Monitor is at…
InComm prepaid product and transaction services is set to remove all Vanilla Visa Gift Card and Vanilla MasterCard Gift Card products from retail locations in New Jersey, effective June 30. As a result of modifications made to State of New Jersey’s unclaimed property laws in 2010 designed to fill a budget shortfall, retailers selling gift cards will now have to capture a gift card purchaser’s personal information (which may include name, address and/or zip code) at the point of sale. This information will then be kept by card issuers and is reportable to the state. After two years of inactivity, New Jersey will automatically take the unspent money, even if the card has not expired. InComm will not be able to ensure compliance and has elected to eliminate the Vanilla Visa Gift Card and Vanilla MasterCard Gift Card programs from over 1,500 retail locations in New Jersey.
Wells Fargo’s International Group has named Charles Kohler deputy head for GPS and Timothy Merrell director of Payments Consulting, Strategy and Customer Experience for GPS. Kohler will manage sales, liability and liquidity products as well as monitor and mitigate payment system risks. Merrell will develop strategy for new and core payment services as well as the overall customer experience. Both are based in New York and will report to George Doolittle, head of Wells Fargo’s GPS.
American Express and Transaction Network Services partnered to kickoff the American Express “Payment Gateway.” The payment service provider solution offers a single-source for all sized merchants looking to establish online payment functionality, allowing businesses to set up the ability to manage e-commerce and other card-not-present transactions with fraud and card data security. It supports major card brands and payment types; enables payment acceptance globally with multi-currency enablement in over 120 global currencies and major local acquirer connectivity; meets unique business needs through hosted solutions, standard or custom implementation and in-country solutions; offers cardholder authentication capabilities, and TNS’ tokenization solution. The American Express “Payment Gateway” ultimately connects merchants with all major processors, acquirers and networks and helps enable all forms of online payment transactions to be processed safely and securely by utilizing TNS’ payment software and global network and leveraging fraud protection capabilities.
Elan Financial Services EFT processing introduced “eAdjust Plus” dispute processing solution to make resolving disputes easier and faster for financial institutions. The dispute process, involving cardholders, merchants, acquiring banks and card issuers. Elan “eAdjust PLUS” features a call center staffed by Elan employees with expert knowledge in Reg. E, network charge-backs and adjustments; dispute investigation and provisional crediting/debiting in accordance with Reg. E and network regulations; clear notices of Reg. E claims mailed directly to cardholders; solution and reporting customized to fit a financial institution’s unique needs and adjustment thresholds by dollar amount and adjustment type set by the client. The “eAdjust PLUS” handles credit card ATM and debit card disputes.
ScanSource Communications has been named Global Distributor of the Year and North America Distributor of the Year by Polycom, the global leader in open standards-based unified communications (UC). ScanSource Communications received the awards at TEAM Polycom 2012 and was honored for its excellence in selling and supporting Polycom’s solutions on a global level, as well as in North America. The annual TEAM Polycom Partner Awards showcase partners who exhibited outstanding sales performance in 2011 in each of the major partner categories and for excellence in innovation, industry focus, customer services, and integration.
Digital River, the revenue growth experts in global cloud commerce, will host leading cyber security experts at the Digital River® Globalocity™ commerce conference. Globalocity, which is expected to draw top business visionaries, industry analysts, global commerce executives and senior professionals from the U.S., Europe and Asia, will take place May 14-16, 2012, at the JW…
InsurCard, the industry leader in prepaid card programs for Workers Compensation payments, recently announced the introduction of the InsurCard Virtual Card, their ‘no-cost’ program for insurers and TPAs who pay workers compensation benefits directly to healthcare service providers. The InsurCard Virtual Card program provides electronic delivery of payments to providers, at no cost to the…
Success Group International (SGI) announced that XBridge Systems has joined the Success Group Global Technology Coalition. SGI Global Networks which now includes SGI Global IT Network (SGIN), Global Partner Network (GPN), Global Business Network (GBN) and now SOC Global Network (SOCGN) with 35,000 global members. Marv McGrew, CEO of Success Group International stated, “Just in…
The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC), announced that a growing number of companies are displaying the N-Mark, the universal symbol and touchpoint for NFC, on smart posters, tags and media, promotional materials, and websites. In response to this increasing popularity, industry demand, and accompanying NFC…
Malauzai Software Inc., a leading provider of mobile banking applications for community financial institutions, announced it has completed a $2.3 million capital raise. The company will use the funds to expand its footprint in mobile banking, pursue strategic partnerships and increase awareness of its proprietary SmartApp platform. Malauzai makes this announcement on the heels of…
Ingenico payment solutions and First Data payment processing partnered to enable retail customers in the U.S. with the First Data “TransArmor.” This will allow customers of both First Data and Ingenico to increase payment security by incorporating TransArmor data encryption and tokenization technologies across the Ingenico “Telium” range of products, which features payment acceptance for EMV, NFC and magnetic stripe cards in a highly secure platform. Ingenico is already working with First Data retailers, emphasizing card data security, reduction of the cardholder data environment, and the advantages of decrypting at First Data as cornerstones of the program. Now the partnership ensures payment card data is more secure from the moment it enters the merchant environment throughout the entire transaction with encryption. After the payment is authorized, sensitive payment card data is replaced with a non-sensitive, random token number that preserves the value of card data for merchant business operations and marketing purposes but removes all cardholder or transaction information that criminals may find useful. This offers a secure environment to significantly reduce the scope and costs associated with PCI compliance.