March 6, 2014--Aimia, the loyalty management leader, released Rewarding Interactions: Are You Ready for Customer Intimacy, a global report highlighting the importance of connecting with customers beyond the transactional level, planning for interactions both before and after the purchase activity. For marketers there are opportunities to build real relationships with customers at every touch point or interaction. Companies who truly value interactions develop additional ways to reward and recognize loyal customers beyond points, cash and discounts.
March 6, 2014--AvidRetail today introduced Kash, the mobile payment alternative to credit card companies that rewards customers for shopping and reduces a retailer's credit card fees to zero. "While smartphones have been changing every aspect for our lives, the way we buy things, pay for things, and transfer money has not changed in substantial way since the introduction of the debit card," said Kaz Nejatian, the CEO of AvidRetail, "With Kash, we are using the most transformative thing in our lives, the smartphone, to completely change how we pay retailers, order products, and transfer money to our friends."
March 5, 2014--Payfirma, the mobile, online and in-store payments provider, is empowering merchants to accept payments in multiple ways through access to their full solution payment API. Developers can now use Payfirma’s easy-to-integrate API to build versatile products for accepting payments online and on mobile devices, so they can meet the needs of merchants who want to increase their revenue through multichannel payments and gain insight from their consolidated sales data.
March 3, 2014 --Online banking customers can once again rely on RBC Royal Bank to offer the most comprehensive online banking experience in Canada. For the fourth straight review, RBC ranked first overall in Surviscor's Canadian Online Banking scorCard, an annual objective assessment of online features and functionality and service interaction at major Canadian banking institutions.
March 3, 2014 --Nearly half of the Canadian internet users purchase goods online, at least monthly, according to the poll for Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The poll in question reveals that close to 87% of the interviewees purchase online at least once a year, whereas 49% shop, the least, once a month. The PricewaterhouseCoopers poll also found that respondents were using their mobile devices more often to make purchases.
February 26, 2014 --Canadian consumers are looking for a full slate of shopping options, according to Total Retail: Customer Expectations Driving the Next Retail Business Model, released by PwC. Canadians want convenient physical store locations, websites that enable them to find and purchase products, and easy-to-use mobile sites or apps—and retailers need to adapt in order to compete.
February 24, 2014 --MasterCard and PRIME Research today released the second annual global MasterCard Mobile Payments Study, which tracked more than 13 million social media comments across Twitter, Facebook, online blogs and forums around the world. The study shows improved sentiment toward mobile payments and rapid growth in consumer use and merchant acceptance. Merchants carry an 88 percent positive rating with many touting mobile acceptance as a competitive advantage. As consumers increasingly turn to mobile options, merchants reluctant to accept these payments may find themselves at a disadvantage.
February 20, 2014 --Tim Hortons and CIBC today announced an agreement to launch a co-branded credit card, which will offer instant Tim Hortons loyalty rewards to CIBC clients on their everyday spending.The new CIBC Visa credit card is scheduled to launch in May 2014, and will allow cardholders to accumulate Tim Cash rewards for all purchases made on the card. That Tim Cash can then be redeemed instantly using the same card at participating Tim Hortons locations to purchase coffee, baked goods, or any other Tim Hortons offerings.
February 20, 2014 --SecureKey, the leading provider of trusted identity networks, today announced that its briidge.net Connect™ Platform has been chosen by the Royal Canadian Mint to provide device-based multi-factor user authentication for its new MintChip cloud-based digital currency.
February 14, 2014 --Online banking and mobile operating systems have been the fields most affected by malware in 2013, according to a new security threat report by Trend Micro. The report indicates that online banking malware directly targeting victims’ finances has intensified globally in 2013, while prolific ransomware has increased and evolved throughout the year.
February 14, 2014 --The Electronic Payments Association announced the keynote and “Industry Agenda” speakers for this year’s PAYMENTS conference, the largest and most comprehensive education event for the payments industry, which will take place April 6-9 in Orlando, Fl. This year, Kristian Hammond, co-founder and chief scientist of Narrative Science, will keynote the event.
February 10, 2014 --The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the global trade association of the payments technology industry, today announced the next step in its continued expansion of government relations activities with the hiring of seasoned financial industry and government affairs professional Scott Talbott as the association’s new Senior Vice President of Government Affairs.
February 7, 2014 --An NDP motion to cap ATM withdrawal fees at 50 cents was defeated in the House of Commons Tuesday. NDP consumer affairs critic Glenn Thibeault said rejecting the “common sense motion” would only boost banks’ profits. “Canadians should not have to pay two or three dollars to withdraw their own money from an ATM, especially as it costs banks as little as 36 cents to process the transaction,” he said in a statement.
February 5, 2014 --RBC today marked a North American first by announcing a social, person-to-person (P2P) electronic money transfer capability for customers to send money to Facebook Messenger contacts, right from within the RBC Canada app.
February 5, 2014 --According to latest forecasts, worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sales will increase by 20.1% in 2014 to reach USD 1.5 trillion. Growth will come primarily from the rapidly expanding online and mobile user bases in emerging markets, increases in m-commerce sales, advancing shipping and payment options, and the push into new international markets by major brands.
February 4, 2014 --CIBC and Teuls rolled out the CIBC Mobile Payment App to TELUS mobile devices with Near-Field Communications (NFC) capability today, which adds to the growing universe of Canadians who access mobile payments. CIBC is building it presence in the mobile payments market among Canadian banks, and the launch with TELUS offers a convenient and secure form of payment using mobile technology, the company's say. Beginning today, TELUS customers using the app and a CIBC credit card account will be able to make mobile payments at many of the most popular retailers in Canada including coffee shops and grocery stores.
February 4, 2014 --Canadians are about to enjoy a more connected and personalized shopping experience. At today's Wavefront Wireless Summits in Vancouver, Rogers announced Mobile Shopper, a machine-to-machine (M2M) solution that will enable customers to engage with brands in-store through mobile offers, applications and mobile payments technology all with their smartphone. RioCan, Canada's largest owner of shopping centres is the first to trial the Rogers Mobile Shopper solution in select Ontario-based shopping centres.
February 4, 2014 --Optimal Payments, a leading global online payment solutions provider, has been awarded with one top award at the International Gaming Awards dinner in London on February 3, 2014. Optimal Payments took the 'Payments Solutions Provider Company of the Year Award' that honours the company who has excelled in the payments field for either online or offline gaming, focusing on value-add, customer service, innovation, ease of use and speed of processing.
January 30, 2014--The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) announced today that it has renewed its exclusive agreement with Chase Paymentech, a leading global merchant acquirer, payment processor and subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., and maintained Chase Paymentech as the provider of choice for payment processing solutions to its members across Canada. The renewal agreement is for three years.
January 22, 2014--The RBC Wallet, powered by RBC Secure Cloud, is now available, enabling RBC Mobile clients to purchase goods and services with their RBC Interac Debit or Visa credit cards using their Bell Mobility Android smartphone. RBC is the first Canadian financial institution to provide clients with the choice of using debit or credit for their mobile payments.
January 22, 2014--WorldPay, the global leader in payment processing, risk and alternative payments today launched ‘Your Global Guide to Alternative Payments (Second Edition)’, an in-depth study of the global payment landscape.
January 17, 2014--Canadians responded to extreme weather conditions in December by taking their holiday shopping online – and they reached a major milestone in the process. For the first time in Canadian eCommerce history, the online share of retail sales totalled 7.8% for the month of December according to MasterCard SpendingPulse
January 15, 2014 –-HP today expanded its market-leading retail solutions portfolio with an enhanced line of touch and non-touch digital signage displays (DSDs), a new line of value-priced displays and upgrades to its mobile and fixed point of sale (POS) solutions.
January 14, 2014 –-Today at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention & EXPO, Fujitsu demonstrated their new second generation U-Scan® Genesis® Retail Solution that enables North American retailers to offer faster self-checkout, while improving PoS economics. The new solution drives store efficiency with its highly-competitive scalability, flexibility, reliability and usability functions.
January 14, 2014 –-Ingenico has announced a strategic partnership with Starmount, a provider of mobile software solutions that helps retailers engage with customers across channels by delivering a more personalized shopping experience.
January 14, 2014 –-MagTek, a global leader in retail electronic payments security technology, today announces the launch of its DynaPro suite of payment terminals. MagTek understands the merchants' need for flexibility, security and return on investment when it comes to the evolving card technology environment. To meet this demand, MagTek developed the DynaPro suite of devices for the traditional brick and mortar countertop and the rapidly growing mobile platforms that support Apple's iOS and Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE).
January 14, 2014 –-VeriFone Systems, Inc., announced today that its MX 915 and MX 925 consumer-facing, multi-media payment terminals have been certified by Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, Inc., for use and support with Toshiba’s SurePOS Application Client/Server Environment (ACE) software.
January 14, 2014 –-Now retailers will, for the first time, be able to accept digital cash from customers conveniently, affordably and securely. At the 2014 National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention & EXPO, happening in New York this week, Ingenico is introducing the first proof-of-concept of the Royal Canadian Mint’s new MintChip digital payment R&D technology.
January 9, 2014 --The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the global trade association representing the payments technology world, announced today the keynote speakers for “TRANSACT 14: Powered By ETA,” the industry’s largest payments and technology event. Elizabeth Buse, Executive Vice President, Global Solutions at Visa and Ariel Bardin, VP of Product Management, Payments, Google Inc., will deliver industry insights and expertise to 4,000 payments technology and retail professionals.
January 7, 2014 --FICO, a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, has released the results of an international survey of smartphone consumers showing that they want to do much more mobile banking than most of today's smartphone apps permit.
January 3, 2014 --According to a recent survey dubbed "Rogers Innovation Report: Tech Trends 2013," published by Canadian telecoms company Rogers Communications, 52% of Canadians own a smartphone and 33% own a tablet. The report also finds that these mobile device owners expect changes to the retail landscape, with 50% of respondents expecting to spend more money shopping online than in physical stores within the next five years.
December 17, 2013 --Canadian small and medium sized business owners rely heavily on cheque as a form of payment when conducting B2B transactions. According to MasterCard and Kaiser Associates Research, 49% of all Business to Business (B2B) payments are with cheque.
December 11, 2013 --RBC marked a North American first by announcing a social, person-to-person (P2P) electronic money transfer capability for customers to send money to Facebook Messenger contacts, right from within the RBC Canada app. Working closely with Facebook, RBC enhanced its app to allow customers to send an Interac e-Transfer, a simple, convenient and secure way to send and receive money without sharing any personal or financial information, directly to their contacts on Facebook Messenger.
December 6, 2013 --Moneris Solutions Corporation (“Moneris”), Canada’s largest credit and debit card processor, announced today that Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending in Canada jumped 19.19 per cent and 29.33 per cent, respectively, compared to last year. This indicates that these traditionally popular U.S. shopping days – which are still relatively new to Canada – are gaining significant traction north of the border.
November 26, 2013 --Banks and financial institutions globally need to develop mobile point of sale (MPOS) strategies now, as major high street retailers begin to use MPOS solutions to reinvent their in-store shopping experience. This is the view taken by the global bank-driven business association, Mobey Forum, in the second in a series of white papers focusing on the MPOS market.
November 20, 2013 --HID Global, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, today unveiled a major update to its FARGO® Direct-to-Card (DTC®) printer line that significantly expands the secure issuance capabilities for small, medium and large private and government organizations producing ID, access control, payment and loyalty cards.
November 18, 2013 --VeriFone Systems, Inc. today introduced UX Solutions, its series of unattended payment devices that improve transaction security, speed and reliability for vending machines and other self-service environments, including parking meters, petroleum pumps and ticketing machines.
November 18, 2013 --USP, the all-in-one chip-and-pin mPOS (Mobile Point-of-Sale) solution for smartphones and tablets, is revolutionizing the mobile point of sale (POS) pricing with a new “all-inclusive dynamic pricing” paradigm for its mobile chip-and-pin solution. Larger retail outlets, which previously found mPOS technology to be cost prohibitive, may now make the switch because of JUSP’s unique pricing model.
November 15, 2013 --35% of banks' market share in North America could be up for grabs by 2020, as traditional branch banking gives way to digital banking and as new competition emerges. According to Accenture`s research, in 2020 an estimated 15% of traditional banks' revenues could shift to online-only players, including branchless banks and new technology entrants. Another 20% could shift to retail-driven players with a mass-market focus - under partnerships between big-box retailers and banks, and potentially independent ventures by retailers.
November 8, 2013 --Creditron, a leading provider of remittance processing and receivables management solutions, today announced that it has delivered its remittance platform to the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper. Deploying the Creditron platform will enable the Toronto Star to decrease its costs significantly, including savings of over $50,000 per year in hardware maintenance alone.
November 7, 2013 --MasterCard today announced it has signed a strategic agreement with Rogers Communications to support mobile payment innovation, including the Rogers™ Prepaid MasterCard® available inside the newly launched Rogers suretap™ wallet operating on MasterCard's payment network. The suretap™ wallet allows customers to simply tap their phone to pay at the tens of thousands of retailers across Canada currently accepting contactless card payments.
November 7, 2013 --Moneris Solutions Corporation (“Moneris”) today announced the launch of PAYD PRO, Canada’s first debit-enabled mobile payment solution using chip & PIN technology to process payments on the go. PAYD PRO expands Moneris' small business payment offerings, giving merchants an opportunity to accept debit and credit card payments on the go through chip and PIN, magstripe or contactless technology using their smartphone device anytime, anywhere.
November 5, 2013 --Payfirma today announced an agreement with CIBC to offer Payfirma services to CIBC business banking clients who are seeking innovative solutions for accepting payments from clients using mobile devices.Payfirma offers a range of hardware and software solutions on a single platform to help businesses accept debit and credit card payments in stores, online through their company website, or remotely using smartphones and tablets as mobile terminals.
October 31, 2013 --FIS has announced results of the third phase of a consumer banking behavior study finding that "consumers who transfer money person-to-person -- especially those sending money overseas -- want to make those transactions immediate; and, while young consumers are more likely to be among the early adopters of real-time payments, most importantly, they want the process to be convenient and easily accessible."
October 30, 2013 --Quebec police have arrested 16 people and are carrying out more than 20 search warrants today as part of Project Lorgnette, an international debit card fraud scheme based in Montreal. The scheme bilked $12-million from more than 30,000 debit card users in Europe, Quebec provincial police said Tuesday morning.
October 24, 2013 --A new audit by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada reveals that, despite commitments made by FINTRAC in the wake of a 2009 audit, the agency continues to accept and retain personal information not relevant to its mandate.
October 24, 2013 --Indigo has announced the launch of the Indigo Mobile App for iPhone and iPod touch with Passbook support, available for free from the App Store. This app simplifies the Indigo shopping experience for quicker and easier purchasing, at home, in-store, or on the go.
October 22, 2013 --Though online banking remains king when it comes to Canadians' preference for how they bank, an increasing number of Canadians are beginning to embrace mobile. According to a recent survey by ING DIRECT, 41 per cent of Canadians say they are open to doing more traditional banking functions, like paying bills, on their mobile devices, a number that has climbed from 38 per cent since 2012.
October 17, 2013 --Retail Council of Canada (RCC) is pleased that yesterday's Speech from the Throne recognized that change needs to take place to ensure Canadian consumers are treated fairly. However, RCC is calling for a continued focus on the reduction of credit card fees and for more clarity on issues surrounding geographic price discrimination against Canadians. Merchants look forward to working with Government to level the playing field.
October 16, 2013 --Purchasing power is taking on a new meaning for Canadians, as they can now help support Free The Children's charitable initiatives around the world each time they make online purchases by debit - using the new Free The Children RBC Virtual Visa Debit Card.
October 10, 2013 --Canadian credit card holders claim keen loyalty to credit card rewards programs and agree it's one of the most valuable features of their card, yet many are unsure how their card program works, or even how or why they applied for their card in the first place. According to a recent survey from American Express Canada, 89 per cent of Canadians carry at least one credit card in their wallet and just over half (52%) of credit card holders carry between two and three on a regular basis. Over half (59%) have used their primary credit card for over seven years—a significant amount of time considering the limited thought consumers put into the card selection itself. The reason? The majority of those surveyed (60%) admit to initially applying for a credit card through their bank while only 15 per cent say they researched their options.
October 9, 2013--With the Canadian small business sector on the rise, American Express has spent the last five years investing in a team, products and services that are dedicated and tailored to meet the needs of small businesses. Today's launch of the new American Express AIR MILES for Business Card is another perfect example of this strategy, as it is uniquely positioned in the market with business benefits from both American Express and AIR MILES.
October 8, 2013--If you have a customer call centre, Intradiem, the leading provider of intraday management solutions, is offering five tips to improve customer service. These tips are designed to help contact center agents deliver a better customer experience to positively impact the bottom line.
October 8, 2013 --Innovators of the Canadian patient choice assistance card program, RxHelp™, have a new card program to allow Canadian patients prescribed certain Merck prescription medications stay on their preferred brands. The new Merck MyChoice™ card covers up to the cost difference between fourteen leading Merck brand prescription medicines and the generic version, at the pharmacy counter.
October 7, 2013 --Global payments services provider, DataCash - a MasterCard company, announces that its industry leading fraud management solution, GateKeeper:2.0 incorporates MasterCard's Expert Monitoring System Fraud Scoring for Merchants and also MasterCard's Lost-Stolen Account List API.
October 4, 2013 --Ceridian announces that it has completed the legal separation of its human capital management (HCM) and payments businesses. Ceridian completed the separation through a series of transactions that result in the payments business being operated as Comdata Inc. and the HCM business being operated as Ceridian HCM Holding Inc.
October 2, 2013 --CIBC launched of its enhanced Aventura Travel Rewards Program, which allows clients to redeem their Aventura Points for travel on any airline, access every seat on the plane, and pay for flight taxes and fees with their points.
October 1, 2013--eBay Canada has named Farishta Zarify of London, Ontario as the 2013 winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, a distinction that honours successful and innovative e-commerce in Canada. For the ninth year in a row, eBay Canada recognizes Canadian entrepreneurs who have seized the opportunities of online commerce to develop strong, successful businesses.
October 1, 2013--Optimal Payments, a leading global online payments provider, and Daon, a leading identity services provider, today announce that they have entered into an agreement to work together strategically on solutions that will leverage Daon's biometric authentication system with Optimal's NETBANX and NETELLER payment services. The combined capabilities are especially important for market sectors where a high degree of customer identity certainty is required, such as regulated gaming, governmental, and financial services.
September 26, 2013--eBay Inc. announced today that it has agreed to acquire Braintree, the innovative global payment platform powering the next generation of leading online and mobile-first startups, for total consideration of approximately $800 million in cash.
“Braintree is a perfect fit with PayPal,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “Bill Ready and his team add complementary talent and technology that we believe will help accelerate PayPal’s global leadership in mobile payments. Together, we expect that PayPal and Braintree also will accelerate our leadership in supporting developers who are creating innovative solutions for next generation commerce startups.”
September 23, 2013--MasterCard has unveiled a new global report "The Cashless Journey" that identifies Canada as one of the countries closest to being nearly cashless, along with Belgium and France, putting it among the most advanced countries in the world for cashless payments. Much of this success can be attributed to early adoption of payment innovations like PayPass Tap & Go™ technology, EMV Chip migration, a modern payments infrastructure, and the rapid emergence in Canada of NFC payment ready terminals.
September 18, 2013--Out of 68 per cent of Canadians owning a mobile device, 70 per cent are using apps to manage their finances on the go, a recent study reveals. According to the ‘Mobile Banking Survey’ released by North American financial services organization BMO Financial Group, two-thirds (69 per cent) of Canadian consumers who admitted to using financial apps have added that they began using them around 2012.
September 17, 2013--Hundreds of customers in parts of the Greater Toronto Area are having the products they ordered from the Canadian online stores of Best Buy, Future Shop, Indigo or Walmart earlier in the day delivered that same evening.
The surprise deliveries are part of
Canada Post's innovative pilot project in the payments and ecommerce sector, called Delivered Tonight™. The test combines the immediacy of purchasing a product in a store with the convenience of e-commerce home delivery. In partnership with Canada Post, these retailers are leveraging the pilot to better understand and adapt to the needs and expectations of Canada's rapidly evolving e-commerce market. The pilot will also help Canada Post better understand and plan for the considerable challenges of delivering a product through rush-hour traffic within hours of it being ordered online.
September 16, 2013--TD Bank Group (TD), Aimia Inc. (Aimia) and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) today confirmed that they have signed agreements under which TD will become the primary issuer of Aeroplan Visa credit cards on January 1, 2014, and will acquire approximately 50% of the existing Aeroplan credit card portfolio from CIBC.
September 11, 2013--MySTORE, the Independent Division of Retail Council of Canada (RCC), launched a new partnership with Shopify, the creators of a sophisticated user-friendly platform that allows all retailers, regardless of size, to easily build exciting on-line stores in an affordable and technologically friendly way. RCC's membership of more than 45,000 store fronts across Canada will now have access to Shopify's selection of beautiful on-line store designs that are completely customizable and come with all the bells and whistles.
September 9, 2013 --The WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard is Canada's best travel rewards card for 2013, according to an annual review and ranking of credit cards in the September issue of MoneySense magazine.
September 9, 2013 --PayPal announced a new device called Beacon today that enables people to pay for products in physical retail stores using their mobile phones.
September 4, 2013 --Optimal Payments Plc, a leading global online payments provider, has formed a strategic partnership to provide the NETELLER eWallet to Payline, the payment platform developed and operated in France by Monext.
September 4, 2013 --MasterCard Canada is encouraging all female professional and student developers to participate in its MasterCard N>XT developer challenge. A recent Statistics Canada study found that while Canada is seeing an increase in the number of young women with university degrees in computer science programs, men still hold the majority of degrees within this field.
August 28, 2013--From a growing number of entrants, 27 finalists have been selected to compete in the 2013 Canada Post E-commerce Innovation Awards. Finalists were chosen for their bold and innovative approaches to enhancing the online shopping experience in Canada. Winners will receive lucrative shipping contracts worth up to $100,000, customized direct marketing packages - which include data and targeting solutions - as well as valuable marketing prizes.
August 26, 2013 --The Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC) released new polling today that shows consumers overwhelmingly support the decision of the Competition Tribunal to reject a challenge of rules put in place by MasterCard and Visa to protect consumers.
August 16, 2013 --Blackhawk Network (Canada) Ltd., has launched a new travel insurance product called SmartAssureTM travelers insurance, soon to be sold at Canada Safeway grocery locations. SmartAssure will offer Canadian consumers affordable travel insurance coverage to suit a variety of travel needs, such as providing emergency medical travel coverage while traveling abroad.
August 14, 2013 --The Canadian arm of global brand JUST EAT launched its new e-commerce iOS mobile app for on-the-go ordering. With the addition of this faster, more functional mobile platform and the brand's aggressive expansion in new cities, JUST-EAT.ca expects to see over $50 million in order revenue processed through its system to restaurant partners this year. As the nation's largest and only coast-to-coast online food ordering service, the brand services more than 160 cities and towns through its partnerships with 3500 restaurants.
August 12, 2013--TD Bank Group (TD) and Aimia Inc. today announced that TD will become the primary credit card issuer for Aeroplan, a loyalty program owned by Aimia, starting on January 1, 2014. TD will offer a full suite of co-branded Aeroplan Visa credit cards, giving customers several ways to earn miles for flights and enjoy other features and benefits of the Aeroplan program, including benefits within Aeroplan's new Distinction recognition program that launches in January.
August 6, 2013--In answer to the growing burden of PCI compliance, EMV migration, and the emergence of mobile wallets and value-added service options that isrequiring merchants and service providers—such as ISVs, acquirers and ISOs—to devote more resources to managing payments in order to remain current and compliant, VeriFone Systems, Inc.has announced the launch of VeriFone Point, a payment-as-a-service solution that simplifies the complexities of payment for the company’s direct merchant customers and channel partners in the U.S.
August 1, 2013--Everyone knows that receiving a great customer service experience feels good, but a study commissioned by American Express reveals why. In a world first, scientists uncovered a correlation between great service experiences and improved health, proving that it really does pay (at least health-wise) to give and receive great service. Conducted across a global sample, the first-of-its-kind cognitive research study found that great service can improve feelings of wellbeing, reduce feelings of anxiety and sadness, and even make people feel less lonely.
July 30, 2013 --RBC announced its RBC Secure Cloud mobile payments service (patent-pending). This new technology, a first in Canada, will allow clients to more safely and securely pay for purchases using their mobile devices. Keeping sensitive client data secure with RBC in the cloud, not on the phone, makes RBC Secure Cloud a safer, faster, more flexible solution. RBC will bring RBC Secure Cloud to market by the end of the year with debit and credit on a number of smartphone platforms.
July 30, 2013 --Davis + Henderson Corporation has entered into an agreement to acquire Harland Financial Solutions , a leading U.S-based provider of strategic technology, including lending and compliance, core banking, and channel management technology solutions to U.S. banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies.
July 26, 2013 --PayPal has added over 3 million new customers in Q2 2013 via mobile devices, with eBay and PayPal each expecting to see USD 20 billion worth of mobile commerce and payments volume in the course of 2013, eBay President and CEO John Donahoe has revealed during eBay’s earnings call on 17th July 2013.
July 25, 2013--A U.S. federal indictment in New Jersey charges five men with conspiring in a worldwide hacking and data breach scheme that targeted major corporate networks, stole more than 160 million credit card numbers, resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and is the largest such scheme ever prosecuted in the United States.
Staff at Pivotal Payments helped celebrate the company's 10th anniversary in Montreal.
July 24, 2013--This month marks Pivotal Payments’ 10 year anniversary in the competitive and continually-evolving payment processing industry. Established in 2003, the Montreal-based company has become a leader in merchant services and payment processing solutions in North America, servicing over 60,000 merchants and processing more than US$10 billion in annual transaction volume.
July 23, 2013 --A decision today by the Competition Tribunal in Commissioner of Competition v. Visa Canada Corporation and MasterCard International Incorporated (CT-2010-10) dismissed the Application filed by the Commissioner of Competition without costs. The Tribunal found that section 76 of the Competition Act requires a resale and that the Commissioner of Competition had not established that the Respondents’ customers resell the Respondents’ products. The Tribunal further held that the Commissioner’s proposed interpretation of section 76 was not supported by the legislative history of the provision or other decisions.
July 23, 2013 --The Consumers' Association of Canada made the following statement in response to the decision of the Competition Tribunal to dismiss the application brought by the Competition Bureau against the rules of Visa and MasterCard requiring that there be no surcharge and that merchants honour all cards.
July 23, 2013 --The Canadian Convenience Stores Association (CCSA) is disappointed that the Competition Tribunal dismissed the case filed by the Commissioner of Competition that sought to address the practices of Visa and MasterCard toward merchants in Canada. Convenience store retailers in Canada had entertained great hopes that the Tribunal would give merchants the power to limit Visa and MasterCard from continuing practices that allowed them to charge some of the highest credit card rates in the world.
July 23, 2013 --The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is disappointed the Competition Tribunal ruled against the case put forward by the Competition Bureau on Visa and MasterCard practices. Small businesses were hoping the case would be successful and provide merchants new powers to push back against rapidly rising fees imposed by Visa and MasterCard to process credit cards.
July 23, 2013 --The Competition Tribunal today reaffirmed three MasterCard rules, assuring Canadian credit card users won't be hit with surcharges at the cash register and keeping the path clear for innovative new payment products in Canada. Specifically the Tribunal upheld MasterCard Canada's No-Surcharge, Honour-All-Cards and No-Discrimination rules.
July 23, 2013 --Retail Council of Canada concurs with The Competition Tribunal's finding that current rules imposed on merchants by Visa and MasterCard have an adverse effect on competition. Although disappointed the Tribunal failed to strike down the restrictive and anti-competitive rules RCC agrees the problem is best addressed by regulation.
July 23, 2013 --The Competition Tribunal may have rejected the complaint against credit card companies on unfair rules, but it has found that a stronger regulatory framework for credit card fees is required - something the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA) has been telling government for years.
July 17, 2013 - The Canadian credit card industry is gearing-up for significant competition as new account growth stalls, issuers compete for wallet-share and major credit card partnership programs change hands.
July 15, 2013 - The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) welcomes the Competition Bureau's decision to approve Interac's restructuring plans.
July 9, 2013 - The Competition Bureau has taken legal action against two of Canada's largest furniture and home appliance retailers, Leon's Furniture Limited and The Brick Ltd., for what the Bureau believes are deceptive marketing practices.
July 10, 2013 - FIME has enhanced its SAVVI test tool to enable Visa terminal integration test results to be automated into a format which, for the first time, can be submitted directly online to Visa. This new functionality, which has been tested and endorsed by Elavon, a leader in payment processes, will speed up the testing process for acquirers as well as eliminate human error when inputting and filing results manually.
July 9, 2013 – SunGard will now resell Creditron’s advanced Remittance Cloud Processing (RCP) solution to city and county government users of its public sector finance, administration and public works software solutions.
July 9, 2013 - As P$ Mobile Service celebrates its first anniversary, Stationnement de Montréal says the application, developed in collaboration with TC Media, now has more than 200,000 registered users. Since its launch, over 1.8 million payment transactions have been made from a smartphone or computer.
July 4, 2013 - Amidst the fanfare of the Calgary Stampede on July 5th, Coca-Cola will be the first company to roll out Interac Flash payment capabilities at vending machines, starting with 16 vending machines located on the park grounds. Attendees of the event will be the first in Canada to experience this unattended retail implementation, at the Coca-Cola and Interac Vending Tower.
June 28, 2013 - ACT Canada announced the winners of the 2013 Innovation Awards at Cardware 2013 last week. The awards were presented at the culmination of the two day conference in Niagara Falls. Congratulations to the winners.
June 27, 2013 - Mobile payments are already mainstream in Canada, with more than 50 per cent of Canadian smartphone owners having used their phones to make payments, a new study published by Technology Strategies International shows.
June 27, 2013 - TD Bank Group and Aimia have entered into a conditional program agreement under which TD would become the primary credit card issuer for Aeroplan, a loyalty program owned by Aimia, starting on January 1, 2014, subject to a contractual right to match the same terms by Aeroplan's current primary credit card issuer. The right to match period expires on August 9, 2013.
Jun 26, 2013 – Payza has added a new feature that allows Canadian members to transfer funds instantly from their bank account to their Payza accounts with INTERAC Online. The new "Add Funds by INTERAC Online" service will be added to Payza's suite of payments and disbursements solutions immediately available to Canadians.
June 25, 2013 - Social networks help drive both online and offline purchasing, according to Vision Critical, a provider of insight community technologies. The results show that the top social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, drive as much in store purchasing as online purchasing but that those networks affect purchasing behaviour in sharply different ways.
June 21, 2013 - Consumers can now decide whether they want to receive credit card cheques from their financial institutions. These cheques, sometimes called "promotional" or "convenience" cheques, can be used by consumers to pay bills or to transfer a balance from a higher interest credit card or loan to a credit card which may be offering a promotional low interest rate for a specific period of time.
June 17, 2013 - Banking at ING DIRECT just got more simple and convenient. Beginning today, clients can deposit cheques into their accounts remotely using Cheque-In, a new feature of the bank's existing mobile app. Cheque-In allows clients to take a picture of their cheque using their mobile device and have it deposited immediately into their ING DIRECT account. The feature is the first available on all major platforms, including Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod, Android Phone, Android Tablet, BlackBerry Mobile devices with BB10 OS and tablets running Windows 8.
June 14, 2013 - Shoppers are gradually becoming more astute and are making more and more planned purchase decisions, according to a nationwide survey conducted by Walmart Canada. The survey probes buying trends and shopping preferences across Canada.
June 12, 2013 - Beginning this month, thousands of merchants across North America will be able to process loans directly at the point of sale, giving customers greater flexibility and control over their preferred method of payment. This new comprehensive payment and financing solution has been made possible through a partnership with Pivotal Payments, a longstanding leader in credit card payment processing solutions, and FinanceIt, a Canadian point of sale financing platform from CommunityLend Inc.
June 10, 2013 - INTRIA has begun the national rollout of its new image-based cheque processing platform with a successful implementation in Winnipeg. The new platform is taking advantage of cheque processing opportunities emerging from the Canadian Payments Association's (CPA) "Image Roadmap" - an initiative to modernize the Canadian payments system.
June 10, 2013 - Interac Association and Retail Council of Canada (RCC) are pleased to announce the name of the top applicant of the 2013 Retail as a Career Scholarship Program, a program that honours students entering or enrolled in a business, marketing or retail-related program at a Canadian post-secondary institution.
May 30, 2013 - Banks and financial institutions launching mobile wallets in the immediate future should expect to enter a hotly contested market, crowded with own-brand solutions that are limited to the delivery of proprietary services only. This is the view expressed by Mobey Forum’s Business Workgroup, in ‘Structures and Approaches: The Changing Face of the Mobile Wallet’, the fourth instalment in a series of mobile wallet white papers.
May 28, 2013 – Strum offers a robust, cloud-based tool for local merchants to engage with the customers that love them, recognize their 'rock-star' employees and give their regular customers more attention and rewards.
May 23, 2013 – PayPal paints a dim future for the wallet, especially in the Canadian market with the results of a survey released today. Almost nine in ten Canadians indicated they wished they did not have to carry a wallet followed by a vast majority of respondents across five countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, the U.S. and the U.K.) wishing they were wallet-free.
May 10, 2013 – In the wake of a number of recent arrests made in the United States of individuals who allegedly carried out cyberattacks on the international banking system to enable fraud and theft, the Canadian Bank Machine Association and ATMIA (ATM Industry Association) are clarifying the facts around the case as it relates to ATMs, especially here in Canada.
May 9, 2013 - RBC and Bell are launching an easy, fast and secure way for RBC mobile banking customers to purchase goods and services with debit or credit by simply using their compatible Bell Mobility smartphones.
May 7, 2013 - Mobile wallet platform Paytoo has entered an agreement with provider of mobile payment and mobile commerce solutions Mobilepaid and Canadian eCommerce and mCommerce services provider AnywhereCommerce to deliver PayTooSwipe, a mobile payment acceptance solution that can support payment presentation technologies.
May 7, 2013 - Canadian retailers who have delayed rolling out an eCommerce website are facing competition from US e-tailers who are becoming better positioned to steal web revenues from homegrown companies, recent statistics indicate.
April 30, 2013 - A new study by ePath Consulting finds that Canadian eBusiness and eCommerce managers are facing significant challenges in their quest to be among the global leaders in eBusiness, but that there are specific opportunities that can help them move towards the front of the pack.
April 30, 2013 - Moneris has completed the host testing requirements of VISA, MasterCard and American Express to support merchant EMV transactions at the point-of-sale in the United States.
April 25, 2013 – MasterCard has been recognized as a top corporate leader for diversity by DiversityInc and jumped ten spots to fifth place on this year’s list of top 50 companies. MasterCard was distinguished for the company’s ongoing commitment to a culture of inclusion, driving innovation, talent development and results.
April 22, 2013 – NACHA, The Electronic Payments Association’s Internet Council has launched a WEB eResources Center to offer resources and tools to support businesses and financial institutions in implementing and using the WEB Standard Entry Class (SEC) code as an ACH payment option.
April 15, 2013 – A Texas-based bank has launched a mobile bill payment solution that takes advantage of the smartphone cameras to simplify payments. Through Picture Pay, once a customer takes a picture of a bill with their smartphone, they simply enter the amount and payment date and the bill is paid. Picture Pay’s technology reads the data from the bill and its built-in analytics confirm the biller. Then, Picture Pay automatically executes through Allied Payment Network.
April 15, 2013 - Credit unions will be the first financial institutions in Canada to offer remote deposit capture - the ability for members to use the camera in their mobile device to snap an image of the cheque they want to deposit and use their mobile banking app to deposit the item electronically. No more taking a cheque to a branch or an ATM. Deposit Anywhere is Central 1's branded mobile deposit service.
April 11, 2013— Despite security concerns, a great number of American consumers are tapping into their mobile devices for money management, according to “Mobile and Money,” a new study conducted by Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in partnership with InMobi and Viggle. The study looks at how mobile users are leveraging smartphones and tablets to manage their personal finances.
April 08, 2013 - Alvic Property Management, a property management company specializing in the management of condominiums, cooperatives and multifamily rentals in the New York metro area, has become the first property management company to accept rent and maintenance payments in Bitcoin.
April 5, 2013 - Desjardins Group and Crédit Mutuel-CIC Group, a first-tier mutualist financial institution in Europe, have announced the creation of Monetico International (MI). Based in Montreal, the organization will offer innovative payment solutions for the merchant clients of both financial institutions.
April 2, 2013 - CGI is consolidating its security expertise and offerings in response to the rapidly increasing risk security threats pose to Canadian business by establishing a Security Centre of Excellence, located in Ottawa. The Security Centre of Excellence comprises over 200 security professionals, a 24/7/365 Security Operations Centre and one of three accredited security evaluation test centres in Canada.
March 27, 2013 - Alterna Savings has renewed its contract with Threshold Financial Technologies Inc. for payment processing services. In addition to transaction processing, Threshold also manages Alterna's fleet of 79 ATMs, as well as debit card provisioning and management. Threshold is a full service integrated solution provider of payments processing and ATM managed services to financial institutions and corporate retail clients.
March 27, 2013 - hyperWALLET, a Canadian provider of global payment solutions, announced the availability of new payment services and increased global payment network reach.
March 20, 2013 – With today’s digital consumers embracing mobile, social and cloud computing, ING DIRECT Canada is applying a smarter commerce approach to consumer banking with IBM's help in meeting the rising expectations of its 1.8 million digital customers. IBM is working with the online bank to deliver innovative financial services that improve ING DIRECT’s customer experience including simplified account access across mobile devices and social media channels, voice recognition and advanced security.
March 15, 2013 - A tough economic climate has changed the shape of retail and the way in which customers shop – as well as having a considerable effect on retail technology innovations, says leading technology company Synqera. Although there has been a string of high street casualties in recent years, the fact that retailers have had to become much more savvy in their approach to attract and retain customers has played an important role in retail innovations – an area which has really evolved.
Mar 14, 2013 – In 2012, the total losses resulting from account takeover and new account fraud each rose by approximately 50 per cent over the previous year. These two fraud types impact consumers most severely, and are historically more difficult for FIs to prevent and detect than any other major fraud type. Today, Javelin Strategy & Research releases the firm’s 2013 Banking Identity Safety Scorecard. For eight years, Javelin has evaluated the top 25 FIs by deposit size based on their consumer facing security features in the three fraud stages of Javelin’s Protection, Detection, and Resolution Model.
Mar 12, 2013--Control Group, a leading New York City-based technology and design firm, is working with the newly launched Kate Spade Saturday brand to blend physical stores with eCommerce. The unique concept celebrates the social side of shopping by bringing the online experience into the retail stores. The first experience will be through the flagship store in Tokyo, which opened on March 2nd. It will roll out to all other retail stores – both in the US and Japan – throughout 2013.
Mar 11, 2013 -- Western Union has created two mobile apps to assist billers in introducing mobile payment solutions to their customers. The two apps are for use with the Western Union Speedpay service.
Mar 8, 2013 - SLYCE Commerce is a visual based purchasing platform which has been developed to help brands sell more products from more places, more rapidly.
Mar 5, 2013 - The city of Appleton, Wis., is reporting extraordinary results just four months into its LUKE II multi-space parking pay station trial. The city attributes a 300 per cent increase in parking revenues to the pay stations' ability to accept bills as payment and because consumers can no longer piggyback on time from previous parking.
March 4, 2013 - Research shows the number of active mobile money users grew impressively; more than 30 million people undertook 224.2 million transactions totalling $4.6 billion during the month of June 2012 alone according to the GSMA’s second annual Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey.
February 27, 2013 - Visa Canada has found a significant number of young Canadians who regularly post personal information on social network sites are putting themselves at unnecessary risk by mirroring similar oversharing behaviour offline with their payment card information.
February 26, 2013 — Visa and Samsung have announced an alliance that has the potential to significantly accelerate the availability of mobile payments globally.
February 20, 2013 — Square now offers brick-and-mortar stores all the hardware to run a business in one convenient and affordable package. Square Register serves as the full point-of-sale system for businesses to accept payments, track sales and share item and location information.
February 20, 2013 – SecureKey has completed an agreement with EnStream, a joint venture of Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications, and TELUS Corporation, to enable SecureKey authentication technology on mobile phones in Canada.
February 13, 2013--The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) issued Commissioner's Guidance to clarify three issues related to the Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada (the code). The Commissioner's Guidance, which stems from the code, applies to payment card network operators that operate in Canada and their participants, including independent sales organizations and other service providers.
February 7, 2013- The growth in the use of electronic payment products, such as credit and debit cards, added US$9.7 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Canada over the past four years, according to a study conducted for Visa by Moody's Analytics, a leading independent provider of economic forecasting.
February 6, 2013 - Canadians who want their tax refund quickly but don't want to pay cheque-cashing fees and take unnecessary risks with carrying cash, now have a better way to get their tax refund quickly and securely. MasterCard Canada has partnered with H&R Block, Canada's largest tax preparer and DC Bank, a leading provider of prepaid cards, to offer the H&R Block Advantage Prepaid MasterCard.
February 4, 2013– Most digital wallets are unknown and misunderstood among American consumers, according to a comScore study released today. Digital wallets, which store a virtual copy of the contents of a consumer’s physical wallet to facilitate online or offline retail transactions, only had awareness among 51 per cent of U.S. consumers for wallets other than PayPal.
February 4, 2013 – BMO Personal Banking customers will soon be able to conduct online Western Union Money Transfer transactions directly from their accounts via Acxsys Corporation’s Interac e-Transfer platform, to Western Union Agent locations in Canada and more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The agreements are expected to be implemented in the first quarter of 2013.
February 1, 2013 – UK-based instant money transfer brand Xpress Money has introduced its online portal for Canadian remittance services with payments provider DebitWay. As a result, customers of Canadian banks BMO, RBC, Scotia Bank and TD Canada Trust can access this service to send money across the world.
January 31, 2013 – Tenzing has joined Sitecore's partner program in an effort to become a leading service provider for e-commerce businesses. The move is enabling Tenzing to provide advanced website content management and marketing tools to allow its e-commerce customers to create unique user experiences
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January 29, 2013 – Everlink is the first payment processor in North America to provide a financial institution with the ability to instantly issue fully personalized Interac Flash enabled debit cards in its branches. This achievement was fully realized on January 28th when Sunova Credit Union began leveraging the recently enhanced Everlink Instant Card Issuance ( ICI ) solution, a web-based, turn-key solution for the on-demand issuance of fully personalized EMV chip debit cards for its members.
January 25, 2013 – New research confirms that mobile bill payments ars on the rise but that consumers pay their bills in multiple ways each month, according to Fiserv. The survey also showed there is a correlation between how consumers pay bills and their use of the internet. The fifth annual Billing Household Survey assessed the bill payment habits of active online households and was the first survey in the series to also evaluate the payment habits of consumers who use the internet infrequently or not at all.
January 18, 2013 – ATMIA today announced the publication of a new best practice manual for preventing cash trapping at ATMs. Due in part to the success in addressing many types of ATM fraud, cash trapping, a type of ATM crime that goes back many years, has been reinvented and is currently on the rise again in some parts of the world, including Europe.
January 17, 2013 -- In Canada, after a cheque is deposited, it must be presented to the financial institution on which the cheque is drawn (the drawee), or its agent, so that the drawee can decide whether to honour the item. Depending on the physical distance between the two financial institutions, presentment can take several days. The time that it takes for a cheque to be presented, potentially dishonoured and subsequently returned, means that a depositor may not be aware that a payment has been refused for several days following the initial cheque deposit.
January 16, 2013 --
Moneris recently announced a partnership with Prospera Credit Union, a British Columbia-based, member-owned co-operative enterprise that provides full service financial offerings to individuals and businesses from Vancouver to Kelowna.
January 16, 2013 --
December online sales rose 26 per cent this year over last – much faster than in the U.S. -- reaching a total of 6.6 per cent of all December retail sales.
January 14, 2013 --
Ingenico today announced that it was working together with Microsoft to deliver enterprise-class devices based on the new Windows Embedded 8 Handheld platform.
January 14, 2013 --
CSI Enterprises, under the trademark brand name globalVCard is set to open its newest office in downtown Toronto. CSI Enterprises announced it is in the early stages of expansion of its globalVCard MasterCard product line into the Canadian market.
January 8, 2013 -- In collaboration with handset maker RIM, the manufacturer behind BlackBerry, and Canadian telco Rogers, the bank has placed a print magazine advertisement in Connected Rogers Magazine that contains an NFC tag developed by NFC specialist Crosscliq. Readers can tap the NFC tag contained in the advert to obtain a holiday gift offer.
January 4, 2013--Following recent decisions by Visa Canada, MasterCard Canada has communicated plans to increase its transaction fees for small merchants in the summer of 2013. MasterCard will increase its "assessment fee" from 6.4 to 7.7 basis points - a 20 per cent increase on July 1, 2013.
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