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Posts Tagged ‘Visa’

Visa Adds PlaySpan to Expanding Acquisitions List

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , on February 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

It wasn’t all that long ago that Visa was putting the final touches on a $2 billion acquisition ofonline fraud prevention company CyberSource.  Now the credit card company has made another big splash that will continue the aggressive expansion of its digital and mobile commerce offerings.

Visa Inc. announced today that it has reached an agreement to buy PlaySpan Inc., a privately-held outfit that handles transactions for digital goods within online gaming, digital media and social networks.

Visa’s going to be paying about $190 million in cash for PlaySpan, with the potential for some additional considerations in the event of any ‘performance milestones.’  The deal should be completed during this year’s second fiscal quarter pending all normal closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Couple this upcoming deal with the CyberSource acquisition and the rapid expansion of Visa’s RightCliq service and you start to see that the credit card giant is making good on its goal of becoming an e-commerce leader, and quickly.

This latest move is clearly aimed at expanding what Visa sees as the most crucial components of e-commerce: digital and mobile offerings.

PlaySpan, which is based in Santa Clara, CA, runs what it calls a Monetization-as-a-Service platform that lets retailers monetize their content through a suite of payment and commerce-related solutions in fraud and risk management, analytics, merchandising and global payment connectivity.  PlaySpan’s technology enables merchants to give consumers the ability to make safe and convenient online purchases for things like game credits, enhanced memberships and digital goods.

The company has already established itself as a leader in the digital goods area, and judging by recent data, business is good.  Digital goods generated nearly $25 billion in consumer spending around the globe last year, and that number is expected to explode to $280 billion by 2014.

PlaySpan is also backed by a number of high-end venture funds, including Easton Capitol, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, STIC, Time Warner Investments, Vodafone Ventures, and GE Asset Management, just to name a few.

With strong backing and a solid offering, it’s not hard to see why Visa is bringing PlaySpan into the fold.  As we said, Visa’s had its sights set on e-commerce leadership for quite some time and even before this move, the results were beginning to show:  Visa claims that 45 percent of U.S. online spending takes place on its’ network and its fiscal Q1 2011 e-commerce payment volume is reportedly up 25 percent year-over-year.

What are your thoughts?  Is Visa eventually going to become the de facto online shopping resource simply because of the diverse assets the company is starting to compile and employ? What does this mean for comparison engines and the like?  Leave us a comment!

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Online Fraud Losses Decline in 2010

Posted in Click Fraud, Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Retail, tagged , , , on January 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Adding to a growing list of why last year was such a good one for online retailers, a new report issued today says that fraud losses decreased in 2010, thanks in large part to merchants rejecting more suspect orders.

Though the overall fraud rate for online retailers from the U.S. and Canada held steady at 0.9 percent for the second consecutive year, the report from CyberSource reveals that total losses from fraud last year totaled $2.7 billion for U.S. retailers.

That’s a significant drop from the $3.3 billion reported in 2009.

“E-commerce sales are picking up but fraud managers are keeping up with increased fraud volume,” says Doug Schwegman, director of worldwide market intelligence at CyberSource, a Visa subsidiary that provides fraud prevention and payment processing services to web merchants.

According to CyberSource, the rate of fraud in the report is defined as the percentage of all accepted orders that eventually turn out to be fake.  The company conducted the survey in September and October, polling 334 merchants in North America and another 200 from the United Kingdom.

Overall sales throughout 2010 were up across most e-commerce channels, but the report says a greater commitment on the part of web merchants to reject suspicious orders is the main reason for the decrease in total fraud.  North American retailers rejected 2.7 percent of all 2010 orders, up slightly from 2.4 percent in 2009.  It was the first increase in rejected orders in two full years but still far short of the 4 percent rejection rate that was reported in 2008.

U.K. retailers didn’t enjoy as strong of a year as their North American counterparts in this critical area—the overall fraud rate across the pond increased to 1.9 percent from 1.6 in 2009, though the U.K. rejection rate did actually increase to 5 percent, up 0.04 percent from the previous year.

CyberSource says the higher rate in the U.K. is due to criminals moving more activities to the country as a result of tougher prevention tactics elsewhere in the world, and also because many U.K. retailers are likely to accept cross-border transactions, many of which often turn out to be fraudulent.

Seems like it’s better to be in North America if you’re a merchant dealing with fraud right now, doesn’t it?  As always, leave us your thoughts and comments.

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Visa Begins Big Push on Rightcliq

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on August 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

The wait is over.   After announcing this past March that it has designs on becoming a player in the comparison shopping industry and challenging the likes of Google (GOOG) and Pay Pal, Visa’s (V) official marketing push for its Rightcliq online shopping service is underway this week.

The largest credit and debit card brand in the world has an aggressive marketing strategy to push Rightcliq after months of testing the new service.  Visa believes Rightcliq will deliver all of the things that people love about shopping online while improving on the areas of that consumers often complain about the most.

“We talked to a number of consumers and we understand that they think e-commerce is a good experience today, but that there are ways to make it better,” says Charlie Wilson, Visa’s chief of e-commerce.  “Consumers say they want it simpler and easier and more convenient than it is today.  We organized around those principles.”

Visa has identified two key demographic groups among online shoppers that it will focus its Rightcliq marketing on.  The first, which it calls “young trendsetters,” is comprised of shoppers who are regularly on the lookout for the latest and greatest products and spend a good deal of time interacting with others while they do their shopping.  The second, labeled “shopping enthusiasts,” is the trendy fashionista crowd who practically shop for a living and pride themselves on being in the know about what’s hot.

Combined, Visa says this comprises roughly one-fifth of the entire U.S. online shopping community and more than 26 percent of all consumer retail spending on the web.

As part of the marketing push, the company will target these important and influential consumers through a series of ads on some of sites that they frequent the most, DailyCandy.com and Gizmodo.com just to name a few.  Visa will also launch a public relations and publicity campaign focusing on the  publications regular online shoppers read the most. Marketing within social media sites will also be involved, according to Wilson.

The Rightcliq marketing launch follows Visa’s recent $2 billion purchase of CyberSource, the online fraud prevention service that boasts nearly 300,000 global merchants.  Though there’s been no concrete evidence supporting it, there is a thought that somewhere down the line Visa will combine elements of the two in a more diverse offering.

Chances are you’ll start seeing ads for Rightcliq this week, timed appropriately in the heart of the back-to-school shopping period.   Leave us your thoughts and comments regarding how you think Visa will do with this new service.

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Merchant Tips: Visa Clarifies Card Security Measures for Merchants

Posted in Ecommerce, Merchant Tips, tagged , , , , , , , on July 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Visa, far and away the most popular credit card choice for consumers, yesterday clarified its regulations governing how retailers collect and store customer account information for post-transaction disputes in a move that could help merchants save both time and money.

The central item in the clarification, which applies to both online merchants and traditional brick and mortar retailers, is that neither is required to store cardholders’ full 16-digit credit and debit card numbers in the event of a dispute.

Announcing the updates in a joint statement with the National Retail Federation (NRF), Visa Inc. said that retailers need only to provide truncated, disguised or masked card numbers on receipts during post-transaction disputes.

The company also recommended that merchants disguise or suppress the full expiration date and all but the last four digits of the card number on a customer receipts. Merchant copies of receipts should be altered to ensure that no more than the first six and last four digits of a credit/debit card are displayed.

“Merchants should be encouraged to minimize both the amount of card information they store and the duration they keep it,” says David Hogan, the NRF’s senior vice president and chief information officer.

The changes should make it easier and more affordable for retailers to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a program that is run by all of the major card networks to protect credit and debit card data.

“This will significantly reduce the scope of PCI compliance for merchants,” Hogan says.

Visa is the first of the major credit card networks to issue updates to these regulations, though the NRF is optimistic that American Express, MasterCard, Discover and JCB International will all follow suit in the near future.

The statement also advises acquirers to offer systems to merchants that allow full card numbers to be replaced with “substitute transaction identifiers,” such as tokens, which turn a card number into a code that is useless to fraudsters.  Outside payment service vendors often times hold such a code and provide it to a retailer with the actual card number when needed.

Keep your eyes peeled for future announcements from those other card providers on similar information. And as always, feel free to leave us a comment!

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U.S. Senate Mulls Cutting Debit Fees for Retailers

Posted in Merchant Tips, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , on May 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Retailers who have been struggling to stay afloat as the U.S. economy has continued to flounder might be catching a break soon—a new measure making its way through the U.S. Senate that would reduce the fees they pay in order to accept debit cards as a form of payment.

Sen. Richard Durbin’s (D-IL) amendment to new banking reform legislation would empower the U.S. Federal Reserve to set “reasonable and proportional” fees for debit card transactions.  The measure also includes a provision that would give retailers the ability to offer discounts to shoppers who pay via debit cards, check or cash.

The measure passed in the Senate over the weekend by a 64-33 vote, carried largely by the chamber’s Democratic majority, which had 46 members vote in favor of it.   Another 17 Republicans and an independent voted to pass it as well, giving the bill bi-partisan support.  The amendment now must be added to the overall Congressional financial regulation bill at some point in order to be passed.  The House has already passed its own version of the regulation bill but Congressional leadership will have to find a way to include Durbin’s amendment in the final legislation.

If enacted, the new law would apply to both online and traditional brick and mortar merchants and would have a significant impact on retail purchases on the whole.  According to Javelin Strategy and Research, consumers used a debit card for 28 percent of their online purchases in 2009.  And while that percentage is expected to drop down under 26 percent by 2014, debit card usage still represents an enormous chunk of online purchases.

Typical fees for online retail purchases through a Visa (V) debit card are currently about 1.6 percent of the transaction plus 15 cents, though industry-wide these debit card fees fluctuate based on the type of card used and the size of the merchant.

The particulars of just how much debit card fees would be reduced by the Fed have not yet been made clear in the legislation, though any fee cut would obviously be good news for retailers across the spectrum, even if consumers don’t see the effects through price reductions passed down on to them as a result.  In addition, not all debit card users may be able to reap the benefits of the amendment either.  Banks and credit unions with assets exceeding $10 billion will be exempt from the rule and those institutions account for nearly 35 percent of all U.S. debit card transactions.

Merchants and retailers, please leave us your thoughts about the proposed change in debit card fees.  If enacted, how will it affect your operations?   Will you pass the savings down to shoppers or use the boost to help your bottom line?  Leave us a comment!

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Visa Throwing Its Hat into the Comparison Shopping Ring

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , , on March 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Visa Throwing Its Hat into the Comparison Shopping RingThough a full public release is probably a few months away, it appears that Visa is getting involved in the comparison shopping industry with a new initiative called Rightcliq, which is currently enrolling some early trial members.

Details are hazy at best right now but based on the Rightcliq terms of service, consumers will be able to use it to store credit card information and shipping addresses for online purchases with various web retailers.  Rightcliq apparently will also let shoppers collect special offers from certain merchants as well and save product information directly from shopping portals.

Prior to this week, the last time we heard much of anything publicly on this new application was back in October.

“[Rightcliq] is an online shopping tool targeted to consumers that assists online shoppers by offering the ability to browse multiple merchants and select items consumers are interested in looking at in one central location, making comparison shopping easier,” Joseph Saunders, Visa’s chairman and CEO, said at the time during a conference call.

Saunders added that Rightcliq would also include an “auto-sell” feature that instantly compiles a shopper’s shipping and payment data for faster checkout and exclusive offers for Visa cardholders.

This kind of payment processing-comparison shopping tool would likely put Rightcliq in direct competition with PayPal, which currently boasts more than 81 million active accounts.  While credit and debit cards are still the most frequently-used forms of payment for online purchases, PayPal is far and away the most popular alternate payment form.  With Google’s and Amazon’s checkout features failing to grab a significant market share or put a dent in PayPal’s slice of the pie, clearly Visa sees an opportunity here and is taking advantage.

Still, analysts believe the company faces an uphill battle in trying to compete, particularly in making Rightcliq as efficient as the well-established PayPal.  Anyone competing with Paypal would need to, at the very least, deliver a service with a large customer base that is cost-effective for retailers to employ, particularly smaller and medium-sized companies.

For now, Rightcliq is in what amounts to a testing phase, gathering user feedback to make tweaks and adjustments in the coming months.  There could, however, be a more formal public announcement on the plan as soon as tomorrow when Visa executives gather in San Francisco for an Investor Day to discuss new products and the company’s financial health.

We’ll keep tracking this story as new developments arise.

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