Alternative Payments
Bitcoin News & Updates
Bitcoin was in the news again this past week: Germany-based start-up 9flats is now accepting Bitcoin payments for instant bookings, which account for 50 percent of 9flats bookings. Bitcoin prices on 9flats are calculated and converted in EUR via third-party provider BitPay.com, Bitcoin has been on a roller coast valuation of late, with the current market price of around USD 35 per Bitcoin. Recent cyberattacks on Mt. Gox, the largest of the Bitcoin Exchanges saw the price drop overnight from $147 to around $115. More recent Bitcoin News: Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin exchange, said it had been hit with a massive cyberattack. On Wednesday, Bitcoins rose to $147, before pulling back overnight [...]
PayPal Updates
PayPal Here Takes On Square Register With New iPad Payments App – TechCrunch http://news.google.com TechCrunchPayPal Here Takes On Square Register With New iPad Payments AppTechCrunchAfter debuting its in-store mobile payments technology PayPal Here in the U.K. two weeks ago, the payments giant is announcing another set of news around the product: … Ahead Of U.S. Rival PayPal Here, Intuit Pay Rolls Out Its Mobile Commerce … – TechCrunch http://news.google.com Ahead Of U.S. Rival PayPal Here, Intuit Pay Rolls Out Its Mobile Commerce …TechCrunchThe mobile payment market in Europe continues to get more crowded, with the latest wave of entrants coming from across the pond to join a number of homegrown [...]
Telecom Italia and Intesa Sanpaolo begin Milan mobile NFC pilot
Telecom Italia has begun a contactless mobile payments trial in Milan, enabling more than 1000 people to use their mobile phones to pay for bus, tram, metro and train tickets as part of the trial. Additional, the participant can also use their credit card registered on the phone’s SIM to make contactless purchases at more thana thousand retail outlets in Milan. The new platform will allow users to pay for their purchases in shops, public transport, and access information on posters by simply waving their NFC-enabled handsets. The pilot was recently launched at the GSMA summit in Milan, by Telecom Italia. Oscar Cicchetti, head, strategy, Telecom Italia, says: “Telecom Italia’s [...]
PayPal Cutting Jobs
PayPal announced today that as much as 3 percent of its workforce may be laid off shortly according to the plans of new President David Marcus. The reductions are expected to affect approximately 325 in-house staff and another 120 outside contractors. PayPal currently employs about 13,000 people. The job cuts will be PayPal’s first major reductions since the financial crisis in 2008. Competition has heated up in recent months in the payments sector with both merchants and consumers adopting new payment products such as Dwolla, Square and Stripe. The changes at PayPal are focused on streamlining the product development and launch cycle and will see 9 different company units consolidated into [...]
Paypal Acquires card.io
PayPal announced Tuesday that it has acquired card.io, a San Francisco-based firm that specializes in technology to capture credit card data via a smartphone camera. The relationship between PayPal and card.io began when card.io’stechnology was integrated into the PayPal Here app. Employees of card.io will be relocated to PayPal’s San Jose campus. No external device is needed to swipe a credit card with card.io integration allowing virtually anyone with an Android device, iPhone, or browser to scan the credit card by simply taking a photo with their smart phone. The transaction fee charged is 15 cents per scan, and card.io currently accepts all major credit cards. Other card.io partners include Uber, LevelUp, TaskRabbit, 1-800 [...]
Are You Engaged in Domain Name Infringement?
I was recently talking to Dan Pepper of the Pepper Law Group about trademark and copyright, and we drifted to a topic under popular discussion recently: When is the use of someone else’s trademark in a domain name considered infringement? Domain names often contain terms which are trademarked by another party, but that doesn’t mean the URL owner is necessarily infringing on the trademark owner; there are both legitimate and non-legitimate situations, and some are permissible. I’ve noticed more articles on this subject on the ‘net, and as branding and social marketing concerns increase in this time of intense competition, we will likely see more. Dan explained to me that [...]
Bitcoin Payment Network Expands Worldwide
BitInstant LLC recently announced that Bitcoins can now be purchased at ‘hundreds of thousands’ of retail stores across the United States, South America, and Russia. Using these new services, people can purchase Bitcoins and expect to have the digital currency available within the hour, which is a big improvement on the typical wait of up to two days prior to this. The main aspect of this is that it makes Bitcoins much easier to purchase now using cash. Credit and debit cards are not accepted, because of the dangers of chargebacks. which are not permitted in the standard user-to-user Bitcoin transactions. Here is n excerpt from the recent article: Using [...]
New Deal For Green Dot Brings Share Price Increase
Gren Dot, the dicount banking comany, have recently announced a new deal with retailer Dollar Tree Inc. This new deal will allow for Green Dot prepaid debit cards to be available throughout the 4,300 Dollar Tree retail stores. This brings the total number of stores where Green Dot products are available to about 65,000. Green Dot have also announced two contract renewals, one with Wal-Mart, and one with PayPal. Shares prices of Green Dot,which have been on the decline over the last year, have risen 6% shortly after this announcement. An excerpt from a recent article: Shares of discount banking chain Green Dot Corp. rose Monday after the company said [...]
Bitcoin Feared By FBI As Haven For Illicit Activity
An FBI internal report was recently leaked to the internet, raising concerns about the use of Bitcoin currency. Bitcoin is an online currency that allows individuals to buy goods, sell goods, and exchange money anonymously. This report, marked for Official Use Only but not marked classified, raises concerns about the fact that Bitcoin uses mainly a peer-to-peer network, with no central authority. Financial transaction history records are not easy to obtain in those circumstances, which makes it difficult to track certain types of activity, criminal activity in particular. Here is an excerpt from the article: The FBI sees the anonymous Bitcoin payment network as an alarming haven for money laundering [...]
Dwolla Features In List Of “100 Brilliant Companies”
Entrepreneur magazine recently released its list of “100 Brilliant Companies”. Dwolla have been included in the social media category as one of the top ten companies. Dwolla, originating in Des Moines, is an online payment network that allow their customers to make direct online transactions using mobile phones or other online methods. The beauty of the system is that fees are very low, and many small transactions are totally free of charge. Here is an excerpt from the article: Entrepreneur magazine’s “100 Brilliant Companies” list released Wednesday has a familiar name on it. Dwolla, the mobile payments network built and grown in Des Moines, appeared as one of 1o companies [...]
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