Online Debit: Selling Convenience (And Trust)

Boston, MA (PRWEB) November 06, 2011

In new research, Online Debit: Selling Convenience (And Trust), Mercator reviews the range of consumer online payment activity through the filters of new technologies, merchant focus on product expansion, and the role trust and security play at the point of purchase.

The electronic payments evolution that's driving investments into mobile wallets and NFC-enabled devices is also placing added pressure on the debit card programs of traditional retail financial institutions. Everyday purchases, long the core base of debit card transactions, are being enabled online by merchants offering an increasing number of consumable items (such as groceries) with all the shipping and purchasing conveniences consumers expect in the online experience.

Merchants are tying together online and offline buying experiences through web and mobile-enabled application to enable convenient "one-click" buying experiences. At the same time, merchants can incentivize consumers to pick one payment form over another through discounts and other promotional programs.

Highlights of this report include:

The role of signature and alternative debit forms in online payments.

An overview of new online debit technologies being introduced in the market.

Profiles of consumer demographics most likely to drive increased online spend within everyday item categories.

An analysis of the potential impact of merchant's expansion into grocery, pharmacy, and other daily commodity categories to the debit market, as well as their influence over payment types.

A discussion regarding the importance of issuers building an expanded view of how consumers use their depository accounts to protect and grow their retail banking franchises.

A review of the impact of risk management for issuers and consumer' concerns about protecting their cash accounts on online debit payments.

"Consumers' ability to access the Internet through an ever wider variety of untethered devices makes the ability to transact at will a de facto requirement for more and more transactions. Our research indicates that everyday spend transactions, those lying at the heart of the debit market, are being enabled online or through online/offline combinations by most of the largest retailers in the United States.," Patricia Hewitt, director of Mercator Advisory Group's Debit Advisory Service comments.

This report is 32 pages long and has 21 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this report include: Amazon, Acculynk, Adaptive Payments, WalMart, Cardinal Commerce, Google, PayPal, CVS, American Airlines, Authorize.net, NACHA, MasterCard, and PreCash.

Members of Mercator Advisory Group's Debit Advisory Service have access to this report as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access and other membership benefits.

Please visit us online at http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com.

For more information and media inquiries, please call Mercator Advisory Group's main line: (781) 419-1700, send E-mail to info(at)mercatoradvisorygroup(dot)com.

For free industry news, opinions, research, company information and more visit us at http://www.PaymentsJournal.com.

Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/MercatorAdvisor.

About Mercator Advisory Group

Mercator Advisory Group is the leading, independent research and advisory services firm exclusively focused on the payments and banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and contain costs. Our clients range from the world's largest payment issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and associations to leading technology providers and investors. Mercator Advisory Group is also the publisher of the online payments and banking news and information portal PaymentsJournal.com.

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Afilias Receives Excellence In Online Trust Award From The Online Trust Alliance

Dublin, Ireland (Vocus) September 24, 2010

Afilias, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure services and the registry provider for the .INFO domain, has been awarded a 2010 Excellence in Registry Services award from the Online Trust Alliance. Afilias was recognized on Thursday, September 23rd at the Online Trust Alliances fifth annual 2010 Excellence in Online Trust Awards in Washington D.C. for its innovative leadership role in online safety initiatives over the past year.

Afilias cyber security initiatives included its pioneering Anti-Abuse Policy for the .INFO domain, which has helped .INFO to continuously score one of the lowest phishing uptimes for all generic top-level domains (TLDs). It also includes cross-industry collaboration initiatives which have helped suppress two of the largest cyber-gangs and incidents in the Internets history, Avalanche and Conficker. In addition, Afilias has worked to increase implementation of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), which is the only known protection against cache-poisoning and man-in-the-middle attacks.

We appreciate the recognition of our work to enable a more trustworthy Internet and owe thanks to a very cooperative industry, including our domain name registrars who have been responsive in helping us address domain abuse, said Ram Mohan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Afilias. We will continue to strengthen our anti-abuse program and will add DNSSEC protection to more than a dozen registries in the months ahead.

The Online Trust Alliance specifically cited Afilias as exemplifying excellence in online trust for the commitment to working with the registry community, ICANN, APWG and other organizations advancing DNSSEC and developing .ORG. Their development of tools successfully have helped to block over 2.5 million Conficker domains and aided anti-abuse policies, resulting in the suspension in over 100,000 abusive domains.

Afilias is committed to defeating abusive uses of domains and, since introducing our anti-abuse policy in 2008, we have demonstrated measurable results in fighting phishing, malware, and spam, added Greg Aaron, Director of Domain Security for Afilias. Collaboration with our registrars, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, law enforcement, and security vendors and researchers have helped make our efforts successful. This results-oriented approach and expertise sets our registry services apart.

About The Online Trust Alliance (OTA)

The OTAs mission is to create and promote business practices and technologies to enhance online trust and the vitality of e-commerce and online services. Formed in 2004, the OTA is a global non-profit organization representing the Internet ecosystem, supporting user choice and controls, protection of critical infrastructure, privacy and data governance, promoting marketing best practices and self-governance. For more information on OTA please visit https://otalliance.org/

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit http://www.afilias.info.

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