ATM & Debit News articles from August 2003

ATM & Debit News archives from August 2003

Report Notes Settlement Impact.
August 7, 2003... A new report from the Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup Inc. consultancy predicts that the settlements by Visa USA and MasterCard International in the merchant class-action lawsuit will result in little, if any, savings to small merchants. John...

Some 'Second-Tier' Banks Drop Star; Bank One Next?
August 7, 2003... Executives at Memphis, Tenn.-based Concord EFS Inc. recently acknowledged the loss of two members of Concord's Star electronic funds transfer network, Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp and Commerce Bank of Cherry Hill, N.J. ATM&Debit News has...

Credit Unions Form Surcharge Alliance In The Northwest.
August 7, 2003... Sometimes just belonging to a selective-surcharge ATM alliance is not enough. Being assured access to surcharge-free ATMs, at least locally, when changing processors also can be important for some financial institutions, particularly small...

Visa Says Check Card Issuers Must Pay If They Defect To A Different Brand.
August 7, 2003... Visa USA for years forced merchants to accept its Visa check card, only to recently back down from its "honor-all-cards" policy when it settled a merchant class-action lawsuit led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Now the organization is trying to force...

New Offline Debit Rates Take Effect.
August 7, 2003... New Visa USA and MasterCard International interchange rates took effect Aug. 1, lowering by about one-third the amount merchant acquirers pay debit card issuers for signature-based, or offline, debit card purchases. The rate changes, which are...

Key Northwest Alliance Facts.
August 7, 2003... Initial members: 7 credit unions ATMs: 230 PIN-only cards: 158,951 PIN/Signature cards: 383,632 EFT Switch: Alaska Option Source: Northwest Credit Union Alliance. Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All...

Surcharge Rules For ATM Deposits Cause Confusion.
August 7, 2003... Very few ATM owners impose surcharges for shared deposits when noncustomers use the service. In fact, only two electronic funds transfer networks, Montvale, N.J.-based NYCE and the Houston-based Pulse, allow member financial institutions to...

BB&T Picks Base24-es Software.
August 7, 2003... BB&T Co., a Winston-Salem, N.C.-based bank, has chosen Omaha, Neb.-based ACI Worldwide's Base24-es ATM software to process transactions on its 1,900 ATMs. BB&T will use Base24-es on its existing IBM zSeries platform, according to a joint...

EFunds' Net Income Up 13.3%.
August 7, 2003... EFunds Corp., the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based transaction processor and ATM operator, is reporting second-quarter net income of $5.1 million, up 13.3% from $4.5 million during the same quarter last year. Net revenue decreased by 0.4%, to $133...

Plus Adds No-Surcharge Alliance.
August 14, 2003... Visa USA's Plus ATM network is joining the ranks of other EFT networks to offer a selective-surcharge alliance, called the Plus No Surcharge Alliance. Rival MasterCard International in May began allowing issuers to create local...

BofA Lowers Loss Estimate.
August 14, 2003... The financial impact of a 30% reduction in interchange rates for signature-based debit card transactions that resulted from class-action settlements between merchants and Visa USA and MasterCard International this spring will not be nearly as...

Routing Rules Create Conflicts For Processors.
August 14, 2003... In February, the Houston-based Pulse electronic funds transfer network adopted a rule under which ATM and purchase transactions initiated with members' debit cards automatically would route through the Pulse switch, unless the issuer opted to...

Acquirers Struggle To Make The Most Of Lower Rates.
August 14, 2003... Merchant acquirers-both large and small-have become a lot busier these days in the aftermath of Visa USA's and MasterCard International's settlements this spring in the merchant class-action antitrust lawsuit led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. With...

Promoter Hopes Clients' Cardholders Will Leave Some Value On Their Cards.
August 14, 2003... One reason prepaid cards are popular is that, in many cases, funds stored on the plastic go unspent. Now, a leading provider of prize coverage for contests and promotions is using this fact to offer prepaid cards to corporate clients at a...

Food-Stamp Fraud Declines With EBT, But Still A Problem.
August 14, 2003... When most food stamps were distributed as paper coupons, nearly $1 billion worth of benefits annually were believed to have been sold illegally on the black market. Now, through electronic benefits transfer programs, about 92% of all food-stamp...

Cardtronics Buys AmEx ATMs.
August 14, 2003... Cardtronics, a Houston-based independent sales organization, announced Aug. 13 the purchase of 1,704 ATMs and location contracts from American Express Co. for an undisclosed price. The ATMs are located in shopping malls, convenience stores,...

KeyBank Adds SouthTrust ATMs.
August 14, 2003... Birmingham, Ala.-based SouthTrust Corp. has agreed to include its 876 ATMs in Cleveland-based KeyBank's agent-banking service. The partnership gives cardholders of KeyBank's agent-banking clients access to SouthTrust ATMs surcharge-free or at a...

ATMs Hit By Power Outage.
August 21, 2003... Thousands of ATMs went black during the Aug. 14 blackout throughout the Northeast and Midwest. But the nation's largest ATM networks were never without power to switch transactions on ATMs that remained in operation. Several thousand ATMs owned...

Lawyers Seek $558 Million.
August 21, 2003... Lawyers who represent 8.1 million merchants in the class-action antitrust lawsuit settled for $3.05 billion by Visa USA and MasterCard International are seeking $558 million for their services, according to the merchants' lead attorney, Lloyd...

Once A Top Owner Of ATMs, AmEx Pares Its Fleet.
August 21, 2003... It was only a few years ago that New York City-based American Express Co., through acquisitions, became the nation's second-largest ATM owner. At the time, AmEx executives told ATM&Debit News they had high hopes that by connecting the machines...

First Data, TSYS Make Overseas Processing Strides.
August 21, 2003... Two leading U.S. processors of PIN-based point-of-sale debit transactions, First Data Corp. and Total Systems Services Inc., early last year stepped up efforts to enter other countries. Though their success thus far has been limited, both are...

TSA Is Having Success With Software, Hopes For Same In SEC Investigation.
August 21, 2003... It seems Transaction Systems Architects Inc., the Omaha, Neb.-based parent of the ATM and point-of-sale transaction software company ACI Worldwide, operates on two separate tracks. One is the sales and marketing track; the other is the legal...

East Coast Bank Looks To License Its CampusMate System.
August 21, 2003... A East Coast bank that has developed a program to make it easier for parents to deposit funds into their children's various college accounts has experienced slow growth in terms of signing up colleges and universities. But officials at Bank...

TSA Third-Quarter Revenues.
August 21, 2003... Software Licensing Fees $40.7 million Maintenance Fees $20.7 million Services $12.4 million Total Revenues $73.8 million Source: Transaction Systems Architects. Quarter ended June 30....

DebitMan Acceptance To Grow.
August 21, 2003... Some 2,708 Eckerd Drug stores and 4,085 Walgreen pharmacies next month will begin accepting PIN-based DebitMan cards, pushing to nearly 20,000 the number of acceptance locations nationally, says Doug Mills, DebitMan executive vice president....

Wallner Leaves Hypercom.
August 21, 2003... Payment-terminal maker Hypercom Corp. says George Wallner has resigned from its board and no longer will be a consultant for the Phoenix-based firm. Wallner founded Hypercom in 1978. Reasons for Wallner's departure were not disclosed. Over the...

To Our Readers.
August 28, 2003... Because of the long Labor Day holiday weekend, ATM&Debit News will not be published on Sept. 4. You will receive your next issue, the 2004 edition of the EFT Data Book, on Thursday, Sept. 11. Please have a safe and wonderful holiday! ...

Offline Debit Growth Rises.
August 28, 2003... Debit card issuers' efforts to encourage the use of signatures with reward programs and fees applied to PIN-debit purchases may be paying off. Purchases initiated with signature-based, or offline, debit MasterCard and Visa check cards grew by...

PIN, Signature Debit Are Now Growing At The Same Rate.
August 28, 2003... PIN-based point-of-sale debit growth has taken a dramatic downturn. In fact, new ATM&Debit News data suggest, PIN-based debit purchases are growing at virtually the same rate as signature-based, or offline, debit transactions, whose growth rate...

New Survey Data Show POS, Not ATM, Volume Dominates Network Activity.
August 28, 2003... The term "shared networks" was coined decades ago to describe organizations that were created to enable holders of PIN-based debit cards issued by one bank to use other banks' ATMs. Participation in these networks sparked an explosion of ATM...

Editor's Note.
August 28, 2003... Ranking electronic funds transfer networks based on the PIN-based ATM and point-of-sale debit transactions flowing through their switches historically has provided a fairly good picture of where the networks stood against each other. But such...

In-Network ATM Volume.
August 28, 2003... Network 3/03 3/02 Growth 1. Star 88.1 78.1 12.8% 2. NYCE 33.6 30.0 12.0% 3. Co-op 29.1 14.0 107.9% 4. Pulse 23.4 22.1 5.9% 5. MoneyMaker 10.4 ...

On-Us Transactions Far Outweigh EFT Network ATM Totals.
August 28, 2003... For much of the past 10 years, the focus on ATM use has been at retail locations, as that is where most new machines have been deployed. And in most cases, newly deployed off-premise ATMs are not owned by financial institutions. With the...

On-Us Bank ATM Volumes.
August 28, 2003... Bank of America N/A Wells Fargo 33.7 Wachovia 17.9 Citibank 16.8 FleetBoston 16.0 Bank One 13.3 U.S. Bancorp 10.3 J.P. Morgan Chase 9.4 PNC ...

Per-ATM Rates Fall, But Deployments Continue To Rise.
August 28, 2003... ATM deployments continue to rise. But the number of transactions per ATM continues to fall, spelling potential problems for off-premise deployers, new survey data collected by ATM&Debit News suggest. ATM&Debit News estimates there were...

Monthly Transactions Per ATM.
August 28, 2003... Transactions Per ATM ATMs Volume 2003 2,432 371,000 902.3* 2002 2,509 352,000 883.2* 2001 3,494 324,000 1,132.0 2000 3,919 273,000 1,070.0 1999 3,997 227,000...

Leading U.S. ATM Owners.
August 28, 2003... ATMs ATMs ATM Owner 2003 2002 1. Bank of America 14,200* 12,000* 2. American Express 7,100** 7,400 3. U.S. Bancorp 6,663 6,108 4. Wells Fargo 6,353 6,488 ...

Annual EFT Volume.
August 28, 2003... Total ATM POS Year Volume Volume Volume 2003* 16,772 10,828 5,944 2002* 15,524 10,598 4,926 2001 17,232 13,584 3,648 2000 15,947 12,840 3,107 1999 13,317...

The Leading PIN-Based Point-Of-Sale Debit Networks.
August 28, 2003... In-Network POS PIN Volume Terminals Network 2003 2002 Growth Online 1. Star 277,850 235,164 18.20% NA 2. Interlink 76,640 59,038 29.80% ...

Credit Union Converts ATMs.
August 28, 2003... The Anheuser-Busch Employees' Credit Union in St. Louis has become the first Diebold Inc. customer to convert its entire ATM transaction-authorization system to comply with stricter encryption standards. The credit union, which has 22 ATMs, and...

Thales Opens New Center.
August 28, 2003... Thales e-Transactions Inc. recently announced that it has relocated its terminal-deployment center because of a 19% increase in terminal shipments since 2001. The new center is located in Johnson City, Tenn., officials at the Atlanta-based...