All articles by EPI editorial
EPI editorial
Singapore takes a step towards a cashless society
Singapore takes a step towards a cashless societyNetwork for Electronic Transfers Singapore (NETS), Singapores largest electronic payments provider, and mobile phone service provider Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) have joined forces in a groundbreaking pilot project that, NETS said, forms part of its strategy to make mobile payments pervasive across the economy. The project, the first of its kind in Asia, gets under way in September and will see NETS and SingTel staff begin trials using mobile phones equipped with stored value and over-the-air (OTA) funds transfer and near field communication (NFC) contactless payment capabilities VivoTech, a US-based vendor, is supplying the NFC technology and OTA applications used in the project.
EDS offers Australian payment card utility
Were offering payment and card providers the latest technology, vastly improved economies of scale and rapid time to market for new products.New utility director Dee McGrath said without incurring huge up-front costs, few Australian financial institutions could achieve the level of technological and operational sophistication offered by EDSs new utility.Products such as prepaid, scheme debit and chip cards are driving unprecedented growth in micro and online payments, an area in which large banks are struggling to maintain a competitive edge, explained McGrath
MasterCard to develop new processing platform
MasterCard to develop new processing platformMasterCard has unveiled plans to develop MasterCard inControl, a card payments processing platform that will feature an array of authorisation, transaction routing and alert controls The task of developing the platform has been assigned to Orbiscom, an Irish payments technology developer.The platform will address the problem card issuers face in providing transaction controls their cardholders want, explained MasterCard Worldwides chief product officer, Wendy Murdock She added that card issuers have limited options to meet cardholder requirements and have relied on building in-house solutions, which tend to be costly and have a lengthy lead-time to market.With MasterCard inControl, MasterCard will host a service that provides robust, customisable and scalable features, continued Murdock
Many merchants are slow to meet security requirements in the US
For many Level 1 (large) US merchants, the 30 September deadline set by Visa for compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Councils Data Security Standard (DSS) proved ambitious In late October, Visa reported 35 percent of Level 1 merchants had not yet validated their compliance with the DSS, though this was down from 64 percent in December 2006 Visa defines Level 1 merchants as those processing 6 million or more Visa transactions each year.Medium-sized (Level 2) merchants those processing 1 million to 6 million Visa transactions annually were well behind their larger counterparts: 57 percent had not yet achieved PCI DSS compliance
NCR opts for Intel technology
US payments hardware manufacturer NCR has begun installing dual-core processors supplied by semiconductor and electronic processor developer Intel in all its ATMs and recently launched RealPOS 80XRT POS terminals.
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Visa settles Amex anti-trust lawsuit
Financial services group American Express (Amex) has scored a major victory three years after filing a lawsuit against MasterCard, Visa and their member banks in which it alleged that they had illegally blocked Amex from the bank-issued card business in the US In settlement of the allegations, Visa, though not conceding liability, agreed to pay a maximum of $2.25 billion to Amex, which in turn will drop Visa and individual banks named in the lawsuit as defendants
Europe gets third card scheme
The Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS) has answered calls made by the European Central Bank for the creation of at least one more debit card scheme in Europe In a move that will create Europes third debit card scheme, rivalling MasterCards dominant Maestro scheme and Visa Europes V Pay scheme, EAPS has formed a company that will enable cross-border POS and ATM transactions to be made using cards issued by domestic card schemes Brussels-based, the company bears the EAPS name.With the founding of EAPS, weve achieved a milestone for a single European card payment area, said Oliver Hommel, EAPSs co-ordinator
Coming to grips with new challenges
It is a challenge the payments industry acknowledges and is taking steps to address.Every day, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), 13 million non-cash payments valued at a total of A$145 billion ($121 billion) are undertaken in Australia, a country with a population of only 20.4 million people
Royal Bank of Scotland launches multi-currency payment solution
The new online payments service will offer US businesses the opportunity to process credit card payments from domestic cardholders as well as enable multi-currency transactions for non-US cardholders all from a single internet gateway, and supported by RBS acquiring services around the world.To streamline its US operations, RBS has linked the technology behind RBS Lynk, RBS Streamline (its European acquiring service) and Bibit Global Payment Services, an operation RBS acquired in 2004 that provides transaction processing to corporate customers.The RBS product fills a need in the US market for a cost-effective and simplified payment solution that will enable online customers to pay for purchases in more than 100 currencies using a credit card or other local payment types
Hong Kong’s Octopus slips up
Hong Kong’s Octopus slips up. Now may be a good time to review how Hong Kongs electronic payments system should develop, believes Joseph Yam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. His call for a review followed the release of findings by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that Hong Kongs dominant contactless card payments service provider, Octopus Holdings, had erroneously deducted HK$3.7 million ($470,000) from some of its customers bank accounts.