Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor Robert McKinley, with 33 years experience covering payment cards and payment systems, is Senior Analyst/Editor for CardFlash and other payments-related publications. He is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. McKinley served as an expert witness in 100+ litigations including two multi-$billion trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, chaired multiple payments conferences, hired as consultant by Fortune 100 companies and several overseas financial institutions. Full Bio: www.rbm4.com

CARDFREE mCommerce Announces Latest Platform Customer

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CARDFREE mobile commerce announced Checkers/Rally’s will leverage its full commerce platform to provide consumers with a complete mobile experience and will be the first QSR to use mobile to lead key consumer initiatives such as CRM, loyalty and stored value. The CARDFREE merchant commerce platform will enable Checkers/Rally’s to tie all programs together with mobile acting as a common thread. The platform gives merchants a comprehensive view of their customers that traditional programs have been unable to do. By leveraging the data tied to a user’s master account, CARDFREE gives merchants the ability to engage customers based on individual behaviors and preferences. CARDFREE also provides a digital stored value solution that’s optimized for mobile.

Discover Recognized for Cash Rewards Technology

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Discover has been recognized as one of the country’s top technology innovators by InformationWeek for delivering convenience and choice to customers through flexible options to redeem cash rewards while shopping online. Discover ranked 77 on the 2013 InformationWeek 500 list, which is presented annually and honors leading companies for using innovative technologies to transform how their organizations do business. Discover’s new platform enables Discover customers to simply use some, none, or all of their Discover Cashback Bonus or Miles Rewards to pay for their purchases online at select merchants’ websites.

Heartland and Tabbedout Announce mPayment Partnership

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Heartland Payment Systems and Tabbedout mobile payment app announced a strategic partnership to deliver an integrated mobile payment solution designed specifically for restaurant and bar operators. Heartland and Tabbedout have a shared goal of supporting an open merchant and consumer platform that starts with payments and provides an infrastructure for merchants and brands, such as beverage brands and payment sources, to engage with consumers. By aggregating customer data, including profile information, purchase history and feedback, this solution enables operators and brands to offer targeted rewards and incentives to influence purchasing decisions, increase loyalty and attract new customers, all within the venues’ existing infrastructure. Tabbedout will continue to work with other payments and related companies to enable operators to work with the providers of their choice.

Panasonic Showcases POS mCommerce Devices

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Panasonic joins P97 Networks, Microsoft Corp., and CGI, at NACS 2013 to introduce its “PetroZone” mcommerce and behavioral marketing platform for the convenience retail and fuels marketing industry. This new alliance will combine the power of Panasonic’s portfolio of POS devices and deployment services with CGI’s Payment 360 Platform, Microsoft’s Dynamics AX Point of Sale, and P97’s PetroZone cloud based mobile commerce platform to provide the retail convenience and fuel marketing industry a fully integrated mobile payments and settlement platform for the future. The partnership provides major oil companies with a complete cloud based mobile commerce platform, allowing them to offer new mobile payment types, digital offers, integrated customer loyalty programs, and financial settlement solutions for their retail fuel distributors, wholesalers, and marketers.

MasterCard and UN Launch eFood Voucher

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As part of its massive humanitarian response to the Syrian crisis, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is rolling out an innovative electronic voucher programme in Lebanon that will allow hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees to meet their food needs and help boost the local economy. By the year’s end, some 800,000 refugees will be using these electronic cards – or “e-cards” – at participating shops in Lebanon under an initiative realized with the technical support of WFP’s private sector partner, MasterCard. The e-card collaboration is part of a larger, multi-year partnership with MasterCard, launched in September 2012. It twins MasterCard’s prowess in electronic payments systems with WFP’s vast experience assisting the planet’s hungriest and most vulnerable people.

MasterCard Shows Consumer Spending Waning

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[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”0″ ihc_mb_template=”1″] The latest MasterCard SpendingPulse report on September, indicating retail sales continued to weaken, peaking at only 4.7% in June of this year. September retail sales were up only 3 percent year-over-year, which was attributed to a significant drop-off in gasoline spending and no major growth in other sectors. With SpendingPulse consumer…

Former PayPal Exec Move On

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Intelligent Environments announced the appointment of former PayPal executive, Deborah Davis, to the role of non-executive director to provide strategic oversight and help drive an increasing number of major partnerships. Bringing more than 25 years of technology experience with 14 years in vice president roles at PayPal, eBay, Verizon Business and Symantec, Deborah will provide strategic direction and operational insight to drive forward Intelligent Environment’s aggressive international expansion plans, helping determine the strategic road map and new market entry for 2014 and beyond. She ran PayPal’s internal global credit and fraud risk teams out of 6 locations covering merchants and consumers in all of PayPal’s markets.

Chase Paymentech Announces Page Encryption Solution

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Chase Paymentech Announced its Safetech Page Encryption, helping merchants provide a safe and optimal shopping experience for their customers. Chase Paymentech is the first acquirer to offer this type of data-protection technology. Safetech Page Encryption encrypts payment data the moment a consumer enters her or his payment information into a web browser. The payment remains encrypted until it reaches Chase Paymentech, which processes the transaction. After authorization is obtained from the payment networks, Chase Paymentech employs Safetech Tokenization, a stand-alone solution included with Safetech Page Encryption, to replace customer payment data with a benign, secure value that cannot be converted back to payment or account information within a merchant’s network. Tokenized values are returned to the merchant to use for internal processes such as settling transactions. Should a merchant’s network become compromised, the cardholder’s data remains tokenized and not accessible to the threat. Thus, the risk associated with storing cardholder data is reduced. Plus, Safetech Page Encryption may lessen the costs for meeting and monitoring Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance since the burden of managing cardholder data and encryption is removed.

FIDO Alliance Announces MasterCard Membership

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The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance announced MasterCard has joined and been appointed to the Board of Directors. FIDO members commit to share technology and collaborate to deliver open specifications for universal strong authentication that enables FIDO-compliant authentication methods to be interoperable, more secure and private, and easier to use.Open FIDO specifications will support a full range of authentication technologies, including biometrics such as fingerprint and iris scanners, voice and facial recognition, as well as existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules, USB Security Tokens, Smart Cards and NFC. The open specifications are being designed to be extensible and to accommodate future innovation, as well as protect existing investments.

OpenWay Way4 Lands Big Contract

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OpenWay’s WAY4 solution has been chosen for the creation of a single payment space providing online routing of authorisation requests and clearing and settlement between “Universal Electronic Card” (UEK) project member banks. OpenWay, a recognized leader in payment processing software for issuing, acquiring, payment processing, remote banking service and routing under the WAY4™ trademark, provided the technological support to build an interface between member banks. Currently 15 Russian banks are participating in the UEK project, some of which are OpenWay clients. According to an RBC rating, together they service more than 90 million active bankcards in Russia. Universal electronic cards are issued in all 83 districts of the Russian Federation.

MasterCard to Acquire Provus Payment Solutions

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MasterCard announced signed agreements to acquire Provus Bilişim Hizmetleri A. Ş. (“Provus”) independent payment solution and processing provider. The acquisition will build on MasterCard’s strategy of increasing its processing presence in high-growth markets and deliver superior processing solutions and innovative value added services for both financial institutions and customers in the emerging prepaid and mobile payments space. This transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2013. Provus’s payments solutions business includes issuer and acquirer processing, prepaid solutions and ATM processing services.

First Data Releases SpendTrend Shows Slower Spending

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[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”0″ ihc_mb_template=”1″] First Data released its “SpendTrend” analysis for Aug. 31, 2013 through Sept. 30, 2013 compared to Sept. 1, 2012 through Oct. 1, 2012. Tracking same-store consumer spending by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations, overall dollar volume growth was 5.3% in September,…