Tag Archives: payment processing

Walmart Pay to Deepen Information about Shopper Habits

Businesses are striving to stay on top of trends in consumer behavior, and mobile payments have been a hotbed of activity. Walmart Pay just rolled out nationwide, and the company is hoping that the app will help them collect more information about how customers use their products and make purchasing decisions. Credit card processing has seen huge changes recently, and new mobile payment apps like Walmart Pay and Apple Pay are certainly capitalizing on this trend.

Mobile Applications are seeing a ton of investment from the tech sphere, and Walmart is only one of the many companies trying to launch their propriety applications for their customers. The applications are supposed to make purchases easier for consumers. The app can track purchase history, which will allow customers to reorder frequently purchased items.

The application also speeds up the checkout process in-store, which is intended to increase the frequency that customers will visit Walmart and open their wallets. Walmart Pay is also intended to provide more information to the company. Businesses of all sizes are interested in the big data trend, and this application will help them further analyze the purchases and products that customers are viewing.

Walmart Pay also incorporates mobile payments, another major industry trend. Other apps like Apple Pay have been allowing consumers to create e-wallets that allow them to pay using their smartphones. This has been a major shakeup for credit card processing firms, and there have been many startups looking to help companies take mobile payments. While mobile payments have yet to catch on in a major way in the United States, Walmart is hoping that they can help move the needle on this.

The company is rolling out the application nation-wide, after testing the product in smaller markets across the United States. The application does not yet support third-party e-wallets, but customers can currently connect the application with debit, credit and prepaid cards. The company might decide to pair with Apple Pay in the future, but for now the options are slightly more limited. Time will tell if this application sees mainstream adoption. One thing is for sure, the evolution of e-wallets and retailer applications is going to be a transformative force for firms that do credit card processing.

Bank of America to pay $772 Million Penalty

On Wednesday April 9, 2014 Bank of America settled a lawsuit and agreed to pay $772 million in penalties for deceiving millions of customers into buying costly and unneeded services when they signed up for credit cards.

The Crux of the Case

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said that Bank of America illegally deceived 2.9 million customers into buying extra credit card services those customers did not need and that Bank of America charged others for needless credit monitoring between 2000 and 2012.

“Bank of America both deceived consumers and unfairly billed consumers for services not performed,” Richard Cordray, director of CFPPB told the Associated Press. The settlement deal is the largest refund amount ordered to date by the CFPPB, and is the biggest settlement over credit card “add-on” services won by the federal government.

Bank of America will also have to pay an additional $20 million penalty to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and $25 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Delving into the details of the settlement, some of the misleading practices included Bank of America telemarketers telling customers that the first 30 days of a service were free when instead the customers were charged. Also, the bank led customers to believe that they were merely agreeing to receive additional information about add-on services, when in fact the bank was enrolling those customers into the services during calls.

Bank of America released a statement saying that the bank had already refunded money to a “majority” of the affected customers.

Bank of America’s Been to the Dance Before

This isn’t the first time Bank of America has been hit hard by its desire to charge customers fees. Back in 2011, when the Durbin Amendment going into effect was all the rage, Bank of America came up with a plan to charge their customers a fee for using their debit cards.

Bank of America stated its reason for this fee was to offset predicted losses the bank would incur because of the Durbin Amendment.

This went over like a lead balloon, and eventually Bank of America backed off this idea. It’s no mere coincidence that this fee and the resultant backlash heralds from the time period covered in the lawsuit. It seems back in those days, Bank of America was just really into adding fees for everything it could think of.

Transparent Pricing and No Fees

Host Merchant Services was hip to the pitfalls of fees right from its inception. HMS delivers personal service and clarity. The company promises no hidden fees. And a transparent pricing plan so that its customers are not saddled with all of these “add-ons” that Bank of America was so gung-ho about in 2011. HMS believes that when you get your statement every month, you should understand every item, and it should match what you were promised in the sales process.

Wal-Mart Sues Visa

The swipe fee antitrust lawsuit that The Official Merchant Services Blog has been covering for a few years now has an update: Wal-Mart, accusing Visa of excessively high card swipe fees, is suing Visa for $5 billion. The action by Wal-Mart is being taken because Wal Mart opted out of the settlement of the class action lawsuit between merchants and Visa and MasterCard.

This follows our previous report of the Minnesota Twins also opting out of the settlement. Wal-Mart filed the suit Tuesday, March 25, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, where Wal-Mart is headquartered.

Wal-Mart’s Side of the Suit

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is seeking damages from price fixing and other antitrust violations that it claims took place between January 1, 2004 and November 27, 2012.

In its lawsuit, Wal-Mart contends that Visa, in concert with banks, sought to prevent retailers from protecting themselves against those swipe fees, eventually hurting sales. Wal-Mart stated in court documents: “The anticompetitive conduct of Visa and the banks forced Wal-Mart to raise retail prices paid by its customers and/or reduce retail services provided to its customers as a means of offsetting some of the artificially inflated interchange fees. As a result, Wal-Mart’s retail sales were below what they would have been otherwise.”

Wal-Mart contends that that the way Visa set up the swipe fees violated antitrust regulations and generated more than $350 billion for card issuers over the time period in question, in part at the expense of the retailer and customers.

Case History

The antitrust case against Visa, MasterCard and several issuing banks stemmed from the dispute relating to the percentage of credit card transaction fees that retailers must remit to the credit card processing network. The fees generally range from 1.5 to 3 percent and are shared with the bank that issued the card. Also known as “swipe fees,” these charges serve to underwrite the supporting infrastructure that allows businesses to accept and process credit cards.

Large retailers and supporting associations have repeatedly complained about the costs associated with accepting credit cards and the fees for merchant services. These grievances resulted in a number of lawsuits filed in 2005, which were eventually consolidated into a single case known as the Payment Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation.

There were 139 parties involved as plaintiffs, and the case was active for over eight years. In July 2012, a settlement was reached that provided $6 billion in damages to affected retailers and another $1.2 billion for a temporary reduction in interchange fees. As a further concession, Visa and MasterCard eliminated certain rules for merchant services that prohibited surcharging, which is a practice that allows retailers to recoup credit card costs by passing them on to the consumer.

After a settlement was reached in the case, major retailers such as Target, Nike, Home Depot, Lowes, Starbucks and Best Buy ultimately opted out of the settlement. Major trade organizations, including the National Restaurant Association (NRA), have voiced significant opposition to the agreement. In fact, the NRA strongly encouraged its constituent members to reject the settlement and highlighted the potential negative impact it could have on the emerging mobile payments market.

The Saga

To review the full extent of this ongoing saga, you can read our previous coverage of this settlement:

Online Poker in Delaware [2026 Update]

On Tuesday, February 25, 2014, Nevada and Delaware lawmakers signed a landmark agreement to join the states together in online poker ventures, potentially increasing payouts for residents who gamble online. The Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware established a legal framework for the first authorized interstate Internet gambling.

The legislation opened up a landmark new initiative for the two states. Delaware officials supported this venture in the hope that revenues from online poker in Delaware, blackjack, and slots would help boost revenue in the state’s three brick-and-mortar casinos. Competition in those real-world casinos has risen significantly because of the appearance of new facilities in surrounding states. This increased competition has affected overall state revenues from gambling and prompted Delaware lawmakers to seek out other revenue streams like online gambling.

Nevada has three online poker websites: Ultimate Poker, which is owned by a subsidiary of Station Casinos; WSOP.com, which is aligned with the World Series of Poker; and Real Gaming, which is owned by South Point. Delaware’s websites are controlled by the state’s three racetrack casinos and run on 888’s platform.

The potential boost to Delaware’s economy from this move is unclear. Delaware officials predicted that online gambling would generate up to $5 million in state tax revenue in its first year. Those officials have since scaled back that forecast after some technical difficulties and slow take-up online.

Eilers Research gaming analyst Adam Krejcik told investors that Delaware’s current numbers “have been nothing short of a disaster.”

According to the Delaware Lottery, the state brought in $145,200 in revenue from online gaming in January, following $140,000 in December and $111,000 in November.

Nevada hasn’t broken out online poker revenues in the state’s monthly figures, but Union Gaming Group estimated the revenues were between $200,000 and $750,000 each month.

Online Poker in Delaware: Already Opposition

On top of the consternation over the economic impact of this partnership is mounting opposition to the law. On March 26, 2014 members of both parties in Congress supported a ban on online gambling. This bipartisan ban comes just mere months after Delaware’s online gambling system went live and a few short weeks after Delaware and Nevada signed The Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement.

Both Republican and Democrat lawmakers introduced legislation in the House and Senate aimed at banning online gambling, setting the stage for a two-pronged battle in Congress. The measures are aimed at reversing a 2011 decision by Attorney General Eric Holder that a 1961 law used in recent years to curb Internet gaming only barred sports betting. The bills would broaden the prohibition to where it stood before Holder’s ruling.

The Other Shoe Drops

So after Delaware, New Jersey, and Nevada leaped into the space created by the Holder ruling, creating online gambling systems, both Delaware and Nevada teamed up to allow their customers to play against each other in a virtual environment. But before this entire endeavor really gets going, Congress is looking to ban it outright. One key component to why the customer interest is lackluster has to do with something extremely basic (and relevant to The Official Merchant Services Blog): Credit Card Acceptance!

According to uspoker.com, the lack of credit card acceptance is one of the biggest complaints about regulated online poker in Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey. The Mastercard acceptance rate at regulated sites is higher than Visa, however, neither is high enough to be considered adequate for players and operators.

While this is all still new and getting off the ground, the trend in behavior shows at least one of the obstacles online gambling in Delaware faces. Regulated sites have higher fees, and that is there to help offset the risk of fraud. Essentially what happens with these kinds of sites is that they suffer from a much higher rate of chargebacks.

A chargeback typically refers to the act of returning funds to a consumer. The action is forcibly initiated by the issuing bank of the card used by a consumer to settle a debt. Essentially what happens is a consumer disputes a transaction, and the credit card company’s bank responds by taking the money back from the merchant and returning it to the consumer. Customers dispute charges to their credit card usually when goods or services are not delivered within the specified time frame, goods received are damaged, or the purchase was not authorized by the credit card holder — the latter being the most common reason for a chargeback. The chargeback mechanism exists primarily for consumer protection.

Now in online gambling, the risk of a chargeback happening is much higher. Customers who lose money will oftentimes initiate the chargeback instead of taking the loss.

Card issuers have the right to block any transaction that the company does not consider legitimate. Online gaming transactions, even if explicitly legal, sometimes fall into this category. Chargebacks are expensive for banks. These costs are passed onto merchants and processors in the form of penalties and higher processing fees. Banks loathe chargebacks and online gaming has been associated with too many of them over the years. This is one reason credit card companies are not quick to approve these transactions.

But regulation steps in and alleviates these fraud issues. All of the concern related to abusive chargebacks is resolved in regulated markets because players cannot easily charge back a credit card transaction. The transaction is coded as a legitimate, regulated purchase. Many are considered cash advances. The poker site can prove where the player was located at the time of the transaction and that the chips were received. Proper player verification also provides evidence that a charge was proper.

In Conclusion

The allure of online gambling is still high and Delaware is one of the states diving headfirst into the industry. But there are already obstacles facing the First State. A ban from Congress and all of the problems with chargebacks and fraud create a daunting road ahead for Delaware’s online gambling future. Teaming up with Nevada in a partnership to expand the competition was a good first step. But more states need to be involved if the fledgling endeavor is to really get going. That also helps with the fraud issues as it will take more states regulating online gaming to help make banks more comfortable with the industry. This will also help the profitability of processing these transactions.

Here Comes CoinSummit! [2023 Update]

Today marks the start of CoinSummit San Francisco, a two-day event ”connecting virtual currency entrepreneurs, angel and VC investors, hedge fund professionals and others who are looking to learn and network in the virtual currency industry.” CoinSummit will take place on March 25-26 2014 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Many in the bitcoin community have been waiting for this event for a while.

The event with feature notable entities in the virtual currency community that include Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, Nic Cary of Blockchain.info, and Tony Gallippi of BitPay.

The Official Merchant Services Blog has been tapped into the ongoing saga of Bitcoin since this article in November — delving into the fascinating gimmick of Bitcoin mining. Traversing the ups and downs of this unstable and chaotic currency led to the crazy month of February and then the fall of Mt. Gox. Since that fateful day, the virtual currency industry has been scrambling. And now we have this much anticipated summit of industry experts discussing the details and potential future of BitCoin and its competitors.

Don’t Miss a Moment of the Action

For those interested, a live stream of the event begins at 9 AM Eastern time today, and can be viewed here.

Points of Interest

So some of the things we’ll be hoping the Summit delves into are: The Mt. Gox crisis, its aftermath and the future of the currency exchange. Of course industry insiders are all going to be sharing their thoughts, rants and frustrations about MtGox. Many will be raging about the losses incurred by the public and so many bitcoiners, and how badly Mark Karpeles has handled this debacle. But more importantly the issue of malleability will be explained and also how the currency and its exchanges can survive well into the future.

Which leads right into the fact that the crisis didn’t imply a complete price crash for BTC, even after hundreds of millions of dollars in permanent losses. How will exchanges guaranty transparency? Audits? Open balance sheets? These are critical issues if Bitcoin is to be adopted by mass markets. So let’s hope the summit dives right into the answers for those questions.

And then there’s the heavyweight presence to consider. The “big 4″ (Coinbase, Blockchain.info, Bitstamp, and BitPay) will all be present at this summit through its founders. Let’s see if the industry leaders explain their current strategies and growth trends.

The competitors also have some spotlight. Ripple, DogeCoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum will be pitching the advantage of alternative options, but also talking about the future of Bitcoin through smart contracts and smart property, two functionalities many think will catapult BTC prices to new levels.

That’s a quick roundup of what to expect at CoinSummit San Francisco.

The VX 520 Embraces the Future

Sometimes the future just sort of sneaks up on you. Even if you’ve given yourself reminders, sticky notes, calendar alarms, and the proverbial string tied around your finger, the future still has a way of creeping up on you unawares.

Which is why Host Merchant Services is happy to offer its customers a payment processing terminal that comes with a reminder built in. Verifone with its VX 520 Terminal is here to prevent any memory lapses about the future from happening to your business and its PCI compliance needs. The VX 520 is PCI PTS 3.0 compliant right out of the box and is a forward thinking terminal designed specifically to be prepared for the PCI compliance mandates that are changing the rules of the industry.

Verifone terminals use end-to-end encryption with SSL v3.0 and 3DES to maintain the highest levels of security. This encryption, coupled with Master/Session and DUKPT key management, provide maximum protection from fraud and misuse of the terminal. The VX 520 terminal is also certified with PCI PED 2.0 approval.

All About Security

Security and secure transactions have been a hot button issue in the payments processing industry for the past few years. Everything from the Global Data Breach to Bitcoin to the Target Breach has people wondering about how secure their payment information really is. This is the root of the creation of PCI and its standards. In the ten years since the PCI DSS emerged as a consensus industry standard for the major credit card vendors, PCI DSS succeeded wildly in some areas – such as the use of endpoint security, encryption and network monitoring technology.

The Clock is Ticking

However, the success of PCI DSS in some areas highlighted others in which the standard had little to say or created perverse incentives—rewarding “compliance” over real security. Subsequent updates have attempted to right those wrongs. And the VX 520 is on the cutting edge of those PCI updates.

In January 2012 the PCI DSS released version 2.0 of their standards. And the VX 520 was built to be compliant to those standards and more.

In November 2013, the PCI DSS released version 3.0 of their standards. And again the VX 520 was compliant.

The 520, offered by Host Merchant Services, is a nimble processor that is ahead of the curve on security standardization. This is helpful because by December 2014, changes are coming from the credit card companies where older terminals will no longer be valid. Host Merchant Services offers a free terminal to new customers that sign up and are available 24x7x365 to help upgrade existing customers to terminals that will be PCI compliant.

Getting Secure and Staying Secure

Host Merchant Services knows that your business needs secure transactions to function. And we’re here to make the process of PCI Compliance easy, understandable and consistent for you each year. We offer the lowest PCI Compliance fee in the industry, at just $4.95 per month. PCI Compliance is essentially the process of adhering to the standards set forth by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards Council (PCI DSS). Essentially the standards are a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.

Secure transactions are important for merchants and a key element of the customer service Host Merchant Services provides. As part of our commitment to our Merchants and their transaction security, HMS offers a PCI ComplianceInitiative to anyone interested in processing with us. We are happy to offer this initiative as well as our free resources to help our merchants see what needs to be done to become compliant … and stay PCI compliant.

The Doom of Mt. Gox [2023 Update]

February was the month that the all-seeing eye of the media turned its lidless gaze upon Bitcoin and the craggy peaks of Mt. Gox, the Japanese Bitcoin exchange site. Almost half a billion dollars went missing from Mt. Gox, the exchange was rocked, Bitcoin was scorched, and the site went bankrupt.

The Official Merchant Services Blog has been tapped into the ongoing saga of Bitcoin since this article in November — delving into the fascinating gimmick of Bitcoin mining.

Wait, What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a virtual currency introduced in 2008 by a programmer or group of programmers under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It has no central issuing authority and uses a public ledger to verify encrypted transactions. The flashy shiny aspect of it is it’s a currency that can be bought, sold and mined electronically. The famous internet comic strip Penny Arcade defines Bitcoin for its readers here.

In 2013 the currency captured the imagination of the virtual and business worlds by soaring in value, rising from $10 to $1,200 per coin. It surpassed the value of gold at its peak. And then i crashed down to $500.

The currency was also embroiled in the huge Silk Road scandal as federal authorities seized millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins when it shut down the notorious black market web site the Silk Road.

The real trick of Bitcoin and why it’s so fascinating to payment processors is that it’s a cryptographic protocol, or crypto-currency. The protocol creates unique pieces of digital property that can be transferred from one person to another. It’s essentially the legitimization of microtransactions linked to actual monetary value. Each Bitcoin is defined by a public address and private key, both long strings of numbers and letters giving it a unique identity in virtual reality. In addition to its digital fingerprint, Bitcoins also have a place in a public ledger. This blockchain gives the Bitcoin a physical identity. So Bitcoins bridge the virtual and the physical.

Mt. Gox: Hackers Gonna Hack

But no matter how elegant and ingenious the actualization of Bitcoin is, the currency apparently can be hacked.

On February 25, Mt. Gox, the leading Bitcoin exchange located in Tokyo Japan shut down. It had discovered that hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins had gone missing, and more than $400 million had been stolen.
On February 28, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy and said it was under orders not to pay its debts. The exchange publicly apologized to users for “causing so much inconvenience.”

February was actually filled with problems for Mt. Gox and Bitcoin, as we reported previously.

Everything from Russia banning Bitcoins to China half embracing it just piled onto the Bitcoin craze. And then the hack and the bankruptcy happened. Since then, pieces of code showing parts of Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin source have cropped up around the web according to VentureBeat. Mt. Gox set up a phone support line but that got blitzed. Two other sites vied to fill the void of Mt. Gox, with BitStamp edging out BTC China for the title of largest Bitcoin exchange — for now. And then things got funny weird.

Virtual Theft

The authorities are now tasked with investigating the crime. And well, there’s this book, Halting State by Charles Stross, written in 2007. The premise of the book seemed so novel back then: A police officer is called to the offices of a big corporation because a robbery was reported. The robbery as it turns out took place in a virtual world, as the company runs a video game system with virtual currency. And then the novel goes on to explore technology, and how it is quickly evolving to affect the physical world from the virtual world. It was set just a few short years in the future.

And here we are, a few short years into the future, and authorities are investigating the theft of real value currency stolen from a virtual environment.

The amount of coins hacked and stolen from Mt. Gox amounts to about 6 percent of the entire Bitcoin market in circulation. And law enforcement is now tasked with trying to find the identity of the perpetrators — which may seem like an obvious and standard step in the investigative process. But it’s Bitcoin, which is famous for its anonymity and unregulated status. So authorities are filing subpoenas to Mt. Gox to gather information about how the virtual currency is transferred and converted into dollars. While stuck investigating even the basics of how the model works, authorities haven’t even gotten to the stickier situation of how Bitcoins are designed to be untraceable and finding the phantom thieves who stole the strings of encrypted numbers may not happen.

Leaving a half billion dollar hole in an industry that’s already proving to be volatile and susceptible to hacking.

PayPal President Hacked [2023 Update]

Twitter, the modern equivalent of Mad Libs and the yellow journalism of the late 19th century, has revealed to us a gem of irony that makes the whole Target getting hacked story seem that much more poignant.

No one is safe in this bold new era of credit card hackers and identity thieves. Not even the president of a major payment processing company.

PayPal President David Marcus has been the victim of credit card fraud, he said on Monday. The leader of the online payments company revealed via Twitter that his credit card information had been stolen on a trip to the United Kingdom and he’d racked up a “ton” of fraudulent transactions on his account.

Smart Chip Didn’t Help

Marcus speculated that thieves probably skimmed the info from the magnetic stripe on his card, even though his card had an EMV chip, a technology that makes cards in Europe more secure than the ones commonly used in the U.S.

EMV® chip technology– or EMV — is a worldwide standard for credit and debit card payments based around the use of chip card technology. The acronym stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, who collaborated to create the technology. The goal of this project was to create a card that worked based off of a microprocessor chip that is read by the payment terminal. Because the U.S. has yet to widely deploy embedded chip technology, the nation has increasingly become the focus of hackers seeking to steal such information. The stolen data can easily be turned into phony credit cards that are sold on black markets around the world.

Is it Just a Marketing Ploy?

Marcus adroitly used the incident as an opportunity to plug his own company, suggesting that the fraud wouldn’t have happened if the merchant had accepted PayPal. His company is currently trying to expand its presence as a payment option in physical stores, putting it in direct competition with platforms like Square and Google Wallet.

It also comes right when data breaches are major news in the payment processing industry. On December 19 2013, Target confirmed a sophisticated data breachoccured. In their press release they stated: “Approximately 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been impacted between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, 2013. Target alerted authorities and financial institutions immediately after it was made aware of the unauthorized access, and is putting all appropriate resources behind these efforts. Among other actions, Target is partnering with a leading third-party forensics firm to conduct a thorough investigation of the incident.”

So Marcus’ misfortune happens right at the time identity theft, credit card fraud and hackers are on everyone’s mind. With EMV chip cards being touted as one of the best solutions to the hacking problem, Marcus’ mishap even taps into that buzz.

The Bitcoin Roller Coaster

Back in November, The Official Merchant Services Blog dove into the Bitcoin currency craze with an in-depth look at Bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin, introduced in 2008 by a programmer or group of programmers under the name Satoshi Nakamoto, has no central issuing authority and uses a public ledger to verify encrypted transactions. It is a virtual currency that can be bought, sold and mined electronically.

The Hammer is Dropped

We focused on the technological gimmick that is Bitcoin mining – essentially powering multiple computers to create the virtual currency from virtually nothing. The rest of the media since then has been concentrating on the other aspects of Bitcoin, including its use as a money laundering tool. In that same month of November, Federal prosecutors in New York filed charges against Ross William Ulbricht for running the Silk Road website, where customers allegedly used Bitcoins to buy and sell drugs.

And on February 9, Florida stepped into the spotlight concerning virtual currency and money laundering. Bitcoin traders. Florida prosecutors have charged three men, saying that their use of a site called localbitcoins.com violates laws against unlicensed money transmitters, according to a report in the Krebs on Security blog.

Bitcoin Banned in Russia

More bad news for Bitcoin came from Sochi Olympics host country Russia. The country banned Bitcoin altogether. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office recently made its stance on Bitcoin abundantly clear. “Systems for anonymous payments and cyber currencies that have gained considerable circulation — including the most well-known, Bitcoin — are money substitutes and cannot be used by individuals or legal entities,” the office said in a recent press release reported by Reuters. Any use of Bitcoin will be considered “potentially suspicious,” as the Russian government has linked Bitcoin usage to illicit activities.

Russia is only the latest country to release a statement detailing its position on Bitcoin. In early December, China barred financial institutions from using Bitcoin, though it didn’t ban the currency outright. In late January, Canada released a statement that said Bitcoin is not legal tender in the country. Countries like these have expressed skepticism in Bitcoin not only because of its links to money laundering, but also for its overall volatility.

Market Troubles

Bitcoin has plunged more than 8 per cent after a Tokyo-based exchange halted withdrawals of the digital currency, citing technical malfunction. Mt. Gox, a popular exchange for dollar-based trades, said in a blog post it needed to “temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests to obtain a clear technical view of the currency processes.”

It promised an “update” – not a reopening – on Monday, February 10, Japan time. Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox said customers can take out cash “as normal” and it’s working to resolve technical issues that prompted it to halt withdrawals of the digital currency.

“It’s not about cash at all, only about Bitcoin,” Michael Keferl, a communications officer for Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, said. “There is a problem in the way transactions are verified.”

Things then rebounded. The price of Bitcoin rose 0.3 percent to $683.66 at 9:07 a.m. London time, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, which averages prices from exchanges including Mt. Gox.

Bitcoin App Dropped by Apple

On February 5, Apple struck a blow against Bitcon. The Blockchain app, downloaded 120,000 times during its two years in Apple’s iTunes App Store, was the most popular way for people and companies to transfer bitcoins from one another. Apple removed it from the store on February 5. Blockchain immediately shot back with a statement, accusing Apple of getting overly aggressive with future competitors. Apple is rumored to be developing its own mobile payment system.

And Speaking of …

With the crazy ups and downs of Bitcoin, one thing is undeniable: Virtual currency is a profitable new marketplace. Which means Apple isn’t the only group trying to develop their own alternative. An untraceable currency called Zerocoin is being designed by Johns Hopkins University researchers to compete with other virtual moneys such as Bitcoin. The researchers say that if virtual currencies are going to exist, there should be one that provides the same kind of privacy that people have when exchanging traditional forms of money.

What Does This all Mean?

The virtual currency movement has the potential to be the next stage in the evolution of payments and transaction processing.
Advocates say such digital currencies, made possible by complex computer formulas, will eventually be widely embraced by users who want to exchange money instantly and directly, without a bank as middleman.

While it may seem like the wild west in terms of security and long term viability, the concept of virtual currency is actually well in line with what we’re already surrounded with as consumers. By and large we continually swipe plastic through card readers when we buy everything from a coffee at Wawa to a down payment on a new automobile. So a paperless and coinless world is already one in which we exist. It’s not hard to envision a next step where the currency itself is virtual.

But that does leave security issues which are relevant and real. Relying on even the best encryption still leaves risk and susceptibility to fraud.

However, it seems governments are still playing catch up to the technology itself. Focusing on money laundering and the instability the anonymous exchange of currency brings to the banks themselves, as well as the sale of illegal goods and services. All of which are certainly part of their purview. It’s just a weird transition period as the infrastructure of the old school banking system doesn’t seem all that prepared to deal with the fluidity of a virtual currency snaking through the world’s consumers.

In short, it’s an interesting time to bear witness to the evolution of money and the marketplace. Governments will catch up with virtual currency. And consumers will embrace convenience more and more until we face a world that may actually give up on paper and coins completely, in favor of your PIN numbers and some encryption codes that store the value of you.

Marketplace Fairness Act Looms [2023 Update]

With the 2014 holiday shopping season about to grind down to the home stretch, the sales figures are already rolling in. And once again, online transactions have maintained their brisk and healthy growth from years past.

Cyber Monday chalked up record sales, rising a reported 17 percent from 2012 according to USA Today. Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, has been embraced by the media as a flashpoint date for online retail sales during the traditional holiday shopping cycle. The convenience of online shopping versus the hassle of holiday shopping traffic gets the consumers interested. Combining that convenience with the staggeringly low sale prices of the time period and suddenly the appeal of online shopping becomes apparent for folks looking to get their holiday shopping done inexpensively and hassle free.

So with the boom in online shopping, there exists a disparity in sales tax in some instances. This isn’t something that comes up too often in Delaware, the original home base of Host Merchant Services. But many states have sales tax for purchases, and are finding it difficult to compete with the surging online retail business.

While legislation in some states requires sales tax be paid on some online transactions, most sales are still untaxed. In many states that translates into a 5-10 percent price advantage for the online vendor. But it also is a 5-10 percent disadvantage for local brick-and-mortar stores that not only collect sales taxes, but also pay property taxes, employ local residents and support local causes.

Thus there’s been a movement to level the playing field by attacking the sales tax disparity. The Marketplace Fairness Act is the solution to the sales tax disparity. The marketplace fairness act is:

“Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 – Authorizes each member state under the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (the multistate agreement for the administration and collection of sales and use taxes adopted on November 12, 2002) to require all sellers not qualifying for a small-seller exception (applicable to sellers with annual gross receipts in total U.S. remote sales not exceeding $1 million) to collect and remit sales and use taxes with respect to remote sales under provisions of the Agreement, but only if such Agreement includes minimum simplification requirements relating to the administration of the tax, audits, and streamlined filing. Defines “remote sale” as a sale of goods or services into a state in which the seller would not legally be required to pay, collect, or remit state or local sales and use taxes unless provided by this Act.”

Which means out-of-state online, catalog or remote would need to collect sales tax at the time of the transaction, just as local retailers are required to do. For this to happen each state would have to simplify their sales tax laws, making it easier for national vendors to calculate the tax and manage it.

The Marketplace Fairness Act would pave the way for states to require online sellers from out of state to begin paying the sales tax they’ve escaped for years. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said “The Marketplace Fairness Act would level the playing field for small businesses by allowing states — if they so choose — to treat brick and mortar retailers the same as remote retailers.” Durbin, who is sponsoring this bill, is best known for authoring the Durbin Amendment, a piece of legislation that caused much controversy in the Payment Card Industry when enacted.

The act passed the Senate. But has yet to be voted on in the House, with all signs pointing to it not passing the House.

There’s been an uptick in media coverage and analysis of this bill. Essentially the verdict is that the increased sales volume from the holiday shopping season is going to push the political infrastructure to once again address the issue of state sales tax and online merchants.

And that raises the most interesting question of all for the credit card processing industry: Is the global aspect of online shopping going to take a huge step towards pushing sales tax to a federal layer and remove it from the states?

That’s a very big picture outlook on the issue. But as online shopping becomes more and more prevalent, the issue gains traction. The world is becoming a pretty tiny place due to the saturation and convenience of communication. You can video-call people on the other side of the globe instantly with your smartphone right now. Mobile Wallets and NFC are seeking to make it so that you can wave your magic wand, or iPhone, and pay for things instantly. State based sales tax laws look to fall behind the curve of quick evolving technology. Five, ten, even fifteen years down the line the way we make purchases and the marketplace wherein we make those purchases may have evolved past the scope state sales tax. The Marketplace Fairness Act seems to be just a precursor to a larger movement afoot in the retail sales industry.