Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Visa Unveils "Next Generation" Electronic Payments and Services


North American Launch of New Digital Wallet with “Click-to-Buy” Functionality

Scheduled for Fall 2011
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), a global leader in electronic payments, today announced the next generation of payments solutions that will replicate the ease, reliability and security of Visa point-of-sale payments within traditional and digital eCommerce, mobile commerce and burgeoning social networking commerce environments. New offerings are expected to include a secure cross-channel digital wallet and a range of customized mobile payments services that address the specific requirements of geographic markets around the world.
“In addition, we believe Visa’s new payments products and services will help expand financial inclusion to the billions of mobile subscribers today who currently lack access to traditional financial services.”
“Our new solutions deliver greater consumer choice, convenience and control while helping our clients grow their businesses. By helping to reduce abandoned online shopping carts and bringing new account holders into the Visa network, we create a win-win-win for merchants, consumers and financial institutions,” noted Joseph W. Saunders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Visa Inc. “In addition, we believe Visa’s new payments products and services will help expand financial inclusion to the billions of mobile subscribers today who currently lack access to traditional financial services.”
Simplifying Commerce in Complex Economies
In certain countries with established electronic payments infrastructures, expansive Internet usage and broad mobile network penetration, Visa will be introducing a digital wallet and services platform. The digital wallet will store Visa and non-Visa payments accounts, support NFC payments through the innovative Visa payWave application and deliver a wide range of transaction services to accommodate multiple commerce scenarios—including eCommerce, mobile commerce, micropayments, social networks and person-to-person payments.
Visa is working with leading payments card issuers, community banks, credit unions, acquirers, payments processors and merchants to launch the digital wallet. Among the financial institutions and organizations supporting Visa’s wallet strategy are:
  • Barclaycard US
  • BB&T Corporation
  • Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU)
  • ICBA Bancard
  • First Financial Bank of Ohio
  • Nordstrom fsb
  • Pentagon Federal Credit Union
  • PNC Bank
  • PSCU Financial Services
  • Regions Bank
  • Royal Bank of Canada
  • Scotiabank
  • TD Bank Group (US and Canada)
  • US Bank
Visa expects to launch the digital wallet in the U.S. and Canada in fall 2011.
Key features of the wallet are expected to include:
  • Click-to-buy: Shop conveniently and securely by simply entering an email address, alias or online ID and password, instead of a billing address, account number and expiration date. In addition, Visa is exploring dynamic authentication technologies that will bring added layers of security to online purchases.
  • Cross-channel payments solution: The wallet consolidates multiple Visa and non-Visa payments accounts and can be used in mobile, eCommerce, social network and retail point-of-sale environments.
  • Preference management: A menu that enables consumers to set preferences for how their wallet will work, allowing them to customize and control the features of their personal wallet from privacy settings to designating which account will be accessed based on merchant type or purchase amount.
  • Merchant offers: A service that allows consumers to personalize their shopping experience by opting-in to receive money-saving discounts or promotions from participating merchants.
“The widespread adoption of Internet and mobile technology is changing the way people connect and transact across the globe, so we’re focused on delivering locally-tailored payments products and services,” said Saunders. “We are introducing new solutions for eCommerce and mobile devices that provide the same ‘Visa-quality’ experience—convenience, reliability and security—people enjoy when using their Visa cards at a retail location. In doing so, we are accelerating the global shift to digital payments by harnessing our brand, products, network and 50-plus years of payments experience.”
Mobilizing Payments in Emerging Economies
In certain emerging geographic markets with significant mobile penetration, Visa will work with financial institutions and mobile-network operators to provide consumers with a secure, reliable and globally accepted form of payment and the ability to transfer and receive funds, manage financial accounts or top-up wireless air time using their mobile handset. The wide range of features and functions being developed for the digital wallet will allow Visa to pursue a number of strategies to tailor or bundle services to local needs.
  • In countries like India and Russia, where card issuance and mobile subscriptions are high, but card usage is relatively low, Visa will help drive account activation and usage by working with financial institutions and mobile operators to link existing card portfolios with mobile devices to give handsets payments functionality.
  • In countries within Africa and the Middle East where mobile device usage is high and traditional electronic payments infrastructure is less developed, Visa will work with mobile network operators to link new virtual mobile prepaid Visa accounts to mobile phone numbers to enable cash-in, cash-out, personal payments and mobile payments —including bill payments and wireless airtime top-up. Visa also intends to connect existing “closed loop” mobile money services that today provide basic mobile banking and payments services to unbanked and under-banked consumers to its global, open loop network—VisaNet. The integration will open closed loop systems, and provide consumers and merchants with unprecedented scale, functionality and acceptance beyond their existing local geographic footprints.
Across all emerging geographic markets, Visa’s sophisticated payments technology and significant work in establishing global payments standards will aid in navigating the complexity of the myriad of network operators, handset models and operating systems in use globally, helping to enable millions of new and existing Visa account holders to simply use mobile technology for payments services.
Innovation, Acquisitions and Partnerships Expand Capabilities of Visa Network
Visa is developing its next generation services by integrating VisaNet, its global processing network, leading credit, debit, prepaid and commercial product platforms, new capabilities it has acquired through its subsidiaries CyberSource, Authorize.net and PlaySpan, and the unique expertise and services of key commercial partners. In deploying flexible solutions that are locally relevant and globally interoperable, Visa aims to attract more participants to its network and better enable them to connect and transact.
“Our build, buy and partner approach puts Visa in a unique position to deliver the speed-to-market and scalable solutions needed to stay ahead of new demands created by the convergence of Internet, mobile and electronic payments technologies,” said Saunders. “Visa and our subsidiaries are working with financial institutions, merchants, mobile network operators, and innovative technology providers to bring new ways to pay and be paid to more consumers and merchants around the globe.”
Management Webcast
Visa’s management team will host a live audio webcast beginning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time (8:00 a.m. Pacific time) today. The dial-in information for the call is 888-790-4410 (within the United States) or 773-756-0127 (international). The conference passcode is 092075. A replay of the call will be available until May 26 and can be accessed by dialing 866-501-8774 (within the United States) or 203-369-1854 (international). The live call and replay, along with supporting materials, can also be accessed through the Investor Relations section of Visa’s website atwww.investor.visa.com.
About Visa
Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency. Underpinning digital currency is one of the world’s most advanced processing networks—VisaNet—that is capable of handling more than 20,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and guaranteed payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visitwww.corporate.visa.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements can be identified by the terms “will,” “expected,” “intends,” “aims,” “accelerate,” expand,” and similar references to the future. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the timing, impact, content, reliability, acceptance, implementation and overall success of the new digital wallet and mobile payment, the offerings. By their nature, forward-looking statements: (i) speak only as of the date they are made, (ii) are neither statements of historical fact nor guarantees of future performance and (iii) are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict or quantify. Therefore, actual results could differ materially and adversely from those forward-looking statements because of a variety of factors, including:
  • the impact of new laws, regulations and marketplace barriers, particularly those affecting, eCommerce, mobile payments, consumer privacy, and data use and security;
  • macroeconomic factors, such as global economic, political, health environmental conditions;
  • a decline in the growth of e-Commerce and mobile payments activity;
  • inability to keep pace with the innovations of competitors in the eCommerce and mobile payments areas;
  • industry and systemic developments, such as:
    • competitive pressure on pricing;
    • bank and merchant consolidation and their increased focus on costs;
    • adverse changes in our relationships and reputation;
    • disruption of our systems or the inability to process transactions efficiently;
    • account data breaches and increased fraudulent and other illegal activity involving our systems; and
    • issues arising at Visa Europe, including failure to maintain interoperability between our systems;
and the other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on such statements. Unless required to do so by law, we do not intend to update or revise any forward-looking statement because of new information or future developments or otherwise.

Contacts

Visa Inc.
Ryan Donovan, +1-415-932-2564
globalmedia@visa.com

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Hypercom Introduces "Next Generation" Network Technology for ISOs

IntelliNAC™ to Speed Billions of Transactions, Strengthen Security and Deliver Unprecedented Flexibility
ETA 2011 Annual Meeting & Expo
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ETA Annual Meeting & Exposition -- Hypercom Corporation (NYSE: HYC) today introduced IntelliNAC, a high-density, multifunction point-of-sale network access controller that speeds transactions for financial institutions, merchants and other entities whose businesses benefit from processing large volumes of payment transactions securely, and gives Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) a unique selling point to offer to their merchant customers. IntelliNAC builds on Hypercom’s industry-leading secure networking technology that is considered the platinum standard for modern, high-performance transaction networks, routing billions of transactions daily for hundreds of financial institutions worldwide.
http://www.hypercom.com
“IntelliNAC’s advanced telecommunications capabilities integrated into a secure, high-density unit specifically designed for point-of-sale dial and IP communications deliver even more advanced security and transaction capacity than our current networking products.”
“Merchants frequently experience spikes in data transactions and face increasingly complex criminal attempts to hack their payment systems, all of which hurts profits and damages the brands of acquirers, ISOs, merchants and others,” said T.K. Cheung, Vice President of Global Quality and Security at Hypercom Corporation. “IntelliNAC’s advanced telecommunications capabilities integrated into a secure, high-density unit specifically designed for point-of-sale dial and IP communications deliver even more advanced security and transaction capacity than our current networking products.”
Unlike competing products, the IntelliNAC authenticates transactions via Public Key Infrastructure standards required for PCI-DSS compliance and does so in multiple secure zones, meaning that the public key or certificate is never exposed. IntelliNAC is also vendor agnostic; with the IntelliNAC as the backbone of their secure payment systems, ISOs can offer to merchants payment terminals from any manufacturer, any payment application and any networking technology.
Also unlike competitors’ products, IntelliNAC enables ISOs to grow their businesses and lower their total cost of ownership by employing one integrated product to consolidate secure transport of their entire product offering: debit, credit, gift and stored value cards, electronic benefits transfer, age verification, prepaid, check conversion, electronic signature capture and advertising, as well as transaction processing and terminal downloads. Additionally, the system provides real-time reporting of their daily operations and transactions volumes.
The IntelliNAC system enables acquirers and processors to control end-to-end transaction transport on their own, thus eliminating the need to employ multiple third-party vendors and allowing ISOs to deploy quickly and securely their terminals and services to the field. IntelliNAC’s standards-based design facilitates easy migration from legacy systems to IP, and rapid adoption of emerging technologies such as VoIP carrier systems in the future. The system’s expandable platform design protects customers’ investments against future growth in transaction volumes at significant scale. Hypercom also has plans to add mobile to cellular gateway support.
Futureproof Integration for the Most Demanding Network Environments
Hypercom's IntelliNAC concentrator utilizes an advanced, high-density Digital Signal Processor network interface module that supports a full family of analog boards supporting PSTN connection or T1, E1 boards supporting CAS and ISDN PRI trunks on a single card. As a result, a single 19-inch-wide chassis can support up to 16 digital trunk lines totaling 480 multispeed, multiprotocol modem or data ports. The chassis also supports TCP/IP network interface cards, allowing a user to mix and match dial and IP transactions within a single, common platform designed for flexibility.
In addition to the network access interfaces, the IntelliNAC system uses Secure Socket Layer to encrypt and transmit transactions virtually instantaneously. The high-density, multifunction network access controller supports an array of host connection options such as X.25, SNA or TCP/IP, plus Wide Area Network interfaces supporting use of IP VPN.
Other features include hot-swappable components and dual AC or DC power supplies, dynamic multiprotocol dial access software, powerful transaction routing and load balancing functions and protocol conversion. For IP networking users, IntelliNAC can directly connect to the Internet and provides firewall function to protect a corporate LAN.
The feature-rich IntelliView™ network management server system and associated applications for IntelliNAC provide all of the tools needed to manage high-volume point-of-sale/point-of-transaction networks in true client/server architecture. Specifically designed for transaction networks, these systems provide features for status monitoring and detailed reporting, configuration management, activity and performance statistics, alerts and alarms, transaction statistics and analysis, remote downloads and upgrades.
About Hypercom
Global payment technology leader Hypercom Corporation delivers a full suite of high security, end-to-end electronic payment products, software solutions and services. The Company's solutions address the high security electronic transaction needs of banks and other financial institutions, processors, large scale retailers, smaller merchants, quick service restaurants, and users in the transportation, petroleum, healthcare, prepaid, self-service and many other markets. Hypercom solutions enable businesses in more than 100 countries to securely expand their revenues and profits. Hypercom is a founding member of the Secure POS Vendor Alliance (SPVA) and is the second largest provider of electronic payment solutions and services in Western Europe and third largest provider globally.

Contacts

Hypercom Corporation
Pete Schuddekopf, 480-642-5383
pschuddekopf@hypercom.com

MasterCard Advisors: Retail Sales up in 8.8% in April

SpendingPulse: Total U.S. Retail Sales for April Up 8.8% Year-over-Year

Highest Unadjusted Year-over-Year Growth Rate since May 2006
PURCHASE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MasterCard Advisors:
SpendingPulse™
Data Source:
    A macroeconomic indicator, SpendingPulse reports on national retail and services sales and is based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments network, coupled with survey-based estimates for all other payment forms, including cash and check. MasterCard SpendingPulse does not represent MasterCard financial performance. SpendingPulse is provided by MasterCard Advisors, the professional services arm of MasterCard Worldwide.
MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse, a macroeconomic report tracking national retail and service sales, today provided summary results for April 2011. Excluding auto sales, total retail sales grew by 8.8% year-over-year, stronger than March’s growth rate, and substantially higher than the average 7.1% year-to-year growth rate of the previous quarter. Spending on gasoline has helped drive overall sales figures to some extent, but retail sales ex-gasoline show few signs of abating.
While seasonally adjusted retail sales fell in April by 0.1% month-to-month, this may be more of an indication of fluctuating gas prices than the overall state of retail spend. Seasonally adjusted retail sales excluding both autos and gasoline were up by 1.4% in April, the fourth straight month of growth.
Kamalesh Rao, Director of Economic Research for MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, noted: “We have not seen this sort of sustained growth in retail sales since late 2005/early 2006, when the economy was in much better shape and the unemployment rate was more than 4% below its current level. Today, the general state of the labor market and a mixed economic environment suggests that the current rate of retail expansion could be vulnerable, especially given the weight of higher fuel costs on discretionary spending. Additional momentum in the labor market could offset that uncertainty.”
Sectors showing positive results in April included eCommerce, Luxury, Apparel, Groceries and Travel, both in the Airlines and Lodging categories. Weaker segments included Furniture and Furnishings, Hardware, Electronics and Department Stores.
Spending grew in every part of the country, with the best unadjusted year-over-year results in the Pacific and Southwest regions, respectively posting 13.2% and 12.2% growth.
      
U.S. Retail Sales, Unadjusted Year/Year %Change
U.S. Retail Sales   April 2011   March 2011
Total Retail Ex Auto   +8.8%   +8.0%
Total Ex Auto Ex Gas   +6.7%   +6.2%
 
      
U.S. Retail Sales, Seasonally Adjusted for April
U.S. Retail Sales   
% Change Over
Prior Month
   
% Change Over
Prior Year
Total Retail Ex Auto   -0.1%   +7.2%
Total Ex Auto Ex Gas   +1.4%   +6.3%
 
About MasterCard Advisors
MasterCard Advisors provides payments consulting, information, analytics, and customized services to financial institutions, merchants and businesses worldwide. Addressing complex challenges in strategy, marketing, risk, and operations, MasterCard Advisors helps clients maximize the value of their payments businesses. As the professional services arm of MasterCard Worldwide, MasterCard Advisors is uniquely qualified to provide clients with insights and solutions that drive tangible impact and financial gain. For more information, go towww.mastercardadvisors.com.
About MasterCard Worldwide
As a leading global payments company, MasterCard Worldwide prides itself on being at the heart of commerce, helping to make life easier and more efficient for everyone, everywhere. MasterCard serves as a franchisor, processor and advisor to the payments industry, and makes commerce happen by providing a critical economic link among financial institutions, governments, businesses, merchants, and cardholders worldwide. In 2010, $2.7 trillion in gross dollar volume was generated on its products by consumers around the world. Powered by the MasterCard Worldwide Network – the fastest payment processing network in the world – MasterCard processes over 23 billion transactions each year and has the capacity to handle 160 million transactions per hour, with an average network response time of 130 milliseconds and with 99.99 percent reliability. MasterCard advances global commerce through its family of brands, including MasterCard®, Maestro®, and Cirrus®; its suite of core products such as credit, debit, and prepaid; and its innovative platforms and functionalities, such as MasterCard PayPass™ and MasterCard inControl®. MasterCard serves consumers, governments, and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. For more information, please visit us at www.mastercard.com. Follow us on Twitter: @mastercardnews.

Contacts

Meir Kahtan Public Relations, LLC
Meir Kahtan, +1-212-575-8188
mkahtan@rcn.com
or
MasterCard Worldwide
Naya Larsson, +1-914-249-3916
naya_larsson@mastercard.com

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