Donald Boeding
CardWeb.com’s CardExecs database of payments industry movers and shakers today features Donald Boeding, Merchant Services President of Vantiv.
Robert Hammer/R.K. Hammer
CardWeb.com’s CardExecs database of payments industry movers and shakers today features Robert Hammer, CEO and Founder of R.K. Hammer.
RetailMeNot.com Shows V-day Disconnect in Men and Women
RetailMeNot.com online coupon site released its Shoppers Trend Report via a survey conducted by Ipsos (www.ipsos.com) that while 50% of consumers intend to spend $100 or less on their significant other this Valentine’s Day, another large percentage of consumers don’t intend to spend anything on their significant other this holiday. To those planning to buy, sites that sell candy are experiencing almost 3.5 times their typical traffic relative to overall site activity while sites that sell flowers are experiencing almost 3 times their normal traffic relative to overall site activity. However, RetailMeNot.com’s Valentine’s Day Survey, conducted by Ipsos (www.ipsos.com), found that men just don’t seem to be in tune with the wants and desires of their significant other this holiday. The survey shows 21% of women preferred gifts of jewelry, while only 16% of male respondents said they intended to purchase jewelry for Valentine’s Day.
RetailMeNot mWebsite Launches mCoupon Experience
RetailMeNot.com (www.retailmenot.com) online coupon site launched its new mobile-optimized site, http://m.retailmenot.com, using feedback from the RetailMeNot community, the new mobile site provides on-the-go savings to iOS and Android users by giving them access to hundreds of thousands of deals from retailers from around the globe. In addition to its extensive online coupon inventory, RetailMeNot intends to expand the platform to feature curated and exclusive in-store and mobile optimized deals from retailers wanting to reach the increasingly large population of mobile consumers.
RetailMeNot.com Gives $150,000 to Online Couponers
RetailMeNot.com (www.retailmenot.com) announced that it would give people the opportunity to win $250 to help them buy the gift they really wanted, but didn’t get. Over the six-day period from December 26-31, 100 winners a day will be awarded gift cards valued at $250 each. In total, RetailMeNot.com will give $150,000 away to celebrate an end to the holiday shopping season. Participants do need to sign up for the free RetailMeNot.com newsletter that provides consumers a look at the best coupons and deals available in the marketplace each week.
70% + Increase in Merchant Sales Driven by Holiday Coupons
In a follow-up to its Shoppers Trend Report (STR) released prior to Black Friday, RetailMeNot.com (www.retailmenot.com) issued updated information showing metrics that measure the online retail industry’s performance and consumer purchase behaviors during the start of the 2011 holiday shopping season. The top stores frequented by coupon seekers, only 8.5% offered books, movies and music In the STR, 44% of consumers surveyed said the category (books, movies and music) would be on their holiday shopping list See APPENDIX for a complete breakdown of the most popular product categories consumers visited from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
Kudzu Interactive Raises $7 Million Series B Funding
E-commerce solution provider Kudzu Interactive for the
casual dining takeout food market, announced a $7
million Series B funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP).
Additional funding commitments came from existing high net worth
investors. The company has raised $11 million total to date.
Snapfinger enables users to access more than 28,000 restaurants from
leading national chains such as California Pizza Kitchen, Outback
Steakhouse, and Boston Market, as well as local independent restaurants
currently in its network. The product uses location-based technology to
find nearby restaurants and enables the user to order food and complete
the payment transaction in a matter of minutes. Snapfinger is fully
synchronized with the restaurantâs POS (Point of Sale) system, ensuring
order accuracy, real-time menu updates and accurate prep times.
The funding will support aggressive sales and marketing initiatives and
expand the business in a number of different areas, including mobile and
iPad product development and real-time transaction based marketing
features. With todayâs announcement, Josh Goldman and Jeff Crowe,
general partners at NVP, will join Kudzu Interactiveâs board of directors.
ClariPhy Semiconductors Makes Available Data Recovery Solution
CA-based fabless semiconductor provider ClariPhy has started shipping
the “CL1012” clock and data recovery
(CDR) IC with maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) into line
cards with Tunable XFP and XFP+ modules for 10 Gb/s optical networking.
While the CL1012 IC supports both XFP and XFP+ tunable modules, the
proven benefits of MLSE are fully realized with the + version of the
module. These benefits include improved tolerance to major impairments
in telecom networks â chromatic dispersion (CD), first and second order
polarization mode dispersion (PMD), and nonlinear distortion. The CL1012
has ½ the power and ¼ the area of competing MLSE solutions, and achieves
higher performance by design than alternative EDC architectures such as
decision feedback equalization. Carriers deploying the CL1012 and
tunable XFP+ modules in their transport platforms will realize both opex
and capex savings by reducing or eliminating expensive and bulky optical
dispersion compensation equipment, avoiding the need for fiber
characterization, and enabling the use of a greater percentage of their
installed fiber.
ClairMail Names a New Chief Exec Officer
CA-based two-way mobile banking provider ClairMail has hired Pete
Daffern, previously with Purisma, to serve as CEO. Daffern, 43, was CEO
of technology company
Purisma, where he directed the company’s strategy and operations with a
focus on growth through valuable solutions, customer service and
business development initiatives. D&B acquired Purisma in October 2007.
Before Purisma, Daffern was President of AIM Technology, a provider of
applications for contact centers. Previously, Daffern was Vice
President, Worldwide Business Development, Alliances and Corporate
Development for Vitria Technology, where he drove multi-million dollar
business relationships with global integration and ISV/OEM partnerships.
Daffern also spent more than 10 years at Seagate Software, a supplier of
business intelligence software products, where he held numerous
management and sales positions, including General Manager EMEA. The
ClairMail System offers 2-way mobile banking,
payments and card applications that utilize any phone’s existing
messaging and mobile web software and extend the capabilities of
third-party client applications.
ClairMail Web System Optimized for iPhone
Mobile payment platform provider ClairMail has released an upgrade of the
ClairMail System that includes an iPhone mobile web solution. The iPhone solution includes the comprehensive mobile
banking and payments functionality found in ClairMail’s traditional mobile web
offering — account management, fund transfers, bill payments and ATM/branch locators
presented on the iPhone’s rich user interface. ClairMail’s highly secure mobile web solution adjusts its
user interface based on the capability of the mobile device all from the same mobile web URL.
ClairMail is the first and only solution provider capable of delivering 2-way
mobile banking and payments functionality on all mobile phones across
all three user interface options. The ClairMail System seamlessly
and securely integrates with a bank’s systems of record and provides bank customers
with a comprehensive suite of 2-way mobile banking and payment services and
incorporates a powerful Event Engine that can easily handle the
potential transaction volumes from banks of any size and deliver real-time, 2-way Actionable Alerts.
Diebold Integrates with ClairMail’s Platform
Diebold will provide CA-based mobile phone marketer ClairMail a two-way
mobile platform. In the agreement, Diebold will distribute and provide
managed services for ClairMail’s two-way mobile platform, which can be
deployed either on-premise or as a managed
service. Deployed either on-premise or as a managed service, ClairMail
optimizes any mobile phone for 2-way customer interaction. Only the
ClairMail System offers 2-way mobile banking, payments and card
applications that utilize any
phone’s existing messaging and mobile web software and extend the
capabilities of third-party client applications. With Diebold’s mobile
banking solutions, customers will have the capability to securely
interact directly with their financial institution at their convenience
to access accounts, pay bills and conduct other electronic transactions.
Offering ClairMail’s two-way mobile platform in conjunction
with Diebold’s comprehensive outsourcing solution offers financial
institutions a proven, cost-effective approach to adding another channel
to their customer access infrastructure.
Wells’ Oman to Retire
Wells Fargo & Company Senior EVP Mark Oman has announced
plans to retire by the end of next year.
Oman, who heads Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Wells Fargo
Financial, and Card Services and Consumer Lending and a
30-year veteran of the company joined Norwest Financial, the consumer finance subsidiary of
the former Norwest Corporation (now Wells Fargo & Company), in 1979 in
financial reporting, then as manager of treasury and audit services. He
was named Norwest Mortgageâs chief financial officer in 1985, president
and CEO of Mortgage in 1989, a group head in 1997 and a senior EVP in
2005. The first year he led Mortgage it had 1,850 team members, 52
locations in 23 states, originated $4.4 billion in mortgage loans and
serviced $800 million in loans. Last year, Wells Fargo originated $272
billion in mortgage loans and had an owned mortgage servicing portfolio
of $1.53 trillion. Today Wells Fargo serves eight million mortgage
customers nationwide from some 2,400 mortgage and banking stores, and
has almost 26,000 team members.