go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Visa Failed Again As Its Network Went Down For 40 Minutes On Sunday

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/visa-network-outage-2012-4

WASHINGTON (AP) — A technical problem affecting the Visa network barred some people around the United States from using their credit and debit cards for about 45 minutes on Sunday, the company said.

The outage was caused by a recent update Visa has made to its system, said Visa Inc. spokeswoman Sandra Chu. She said Visa had trouble processing some transactions as a result, but the system is operating normally now.

Chu said the problem Sunday was unrelated to the security breach potentially affecting Visa and MasterCard customers that was reported Friday by credit card processor Global Payments Inc.

The outage occurred from around 2:40 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. EDT, a person from a major bank said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because bank employees were not authorized to speak publicly. Visa had notified the banks that are members of its network of the problem.

Consumers and merchants reported having Visa cards rejected on Sunday.

At the Shoot Smart gun range in Fort Worth, Texas, manager Jared Sloane said credit and debit transactions stopped working early in the afternoon.

Sloane said a few customers walked out when told they could only pay with cash or check, but otherwise the problem wasn’t yet much of a disruption.

Shoot Smart said problems with transactions were persisting at about 6:40 EDT.

Chu said Visa’s system was fully up and operational.

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Associated Press writer Paul Weber in San Antonio contributed to this report.

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The big news today from PayPal was a tiny credit-card reader called PayPal Here. It lets any small business owner with an iPhone or Android phone take credit card payments.

But there was actually a far more interesting technology shown today.

It lets you walk into a store and buy a product without touching your phone, money, or a credit card — or even taking your wallet out.

Like the credit card reader, it’s pretty obviously inspired by Square, whose Card Case app was introduced about six months ago. But I never actually got how revolutionary the concept of touchless retail payment was until I saw it in action today.

Here’s how it works.

You need a PayPal account and the PayPal mobile app on your phone. You use the app to look up nearby retailers that accept PayPal. If you find one that you want to shop at, you check in — just like you’d do on Foursquare or any other check-in service.

When you walk into the retailer, their PayPal app (used with the PayPal Here reader) will automatically recognize you. If you want, you can pay with a credit card or cash.

But if you want to use your PayPal account, you simply tell the person behind the counter and the amount will automatically be debited.

You don’t have to do anything else.

I didn’t get what a big deal this was until I tested it out after the event at a nearby cupcake store that had signed up for PayPal Here.

It’s like walking into your local bar and saying “put it on my tab.”

It’s so much smoother than the clunky NFC-based system that Google is using in Google Wallet, where you have to take out your cell phone and tap it against a reader.

In fact, this feature isn’t new at all. It’s called PayPal Local, and it’s been around since late 2010 in San Francisco. But I’ve never seen it in use, anywhere. That’s probably because most merchants aren’t interested in setting up this system JUST to take PayPal payments in the real world.

Either way, if PayPal or Square doesn’t do it, some other company will. Maybe Amazon or Google, maybe Foursquare or another check-in company, maybe a credit card company or bank. Or maybe some startup.

But the idea — walking into a store, being recognized, and being able to buy something without having to use any physical object to complete the transaction — is too great to pass up.

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See Also:

• How PayPal Royally Screwed This Company And All The Kids It Was Trying To Help
• 1 Out Of Every 8 Merchants That Take Credit Cards Uses Square
• Marc Andreessen: Retailers Should Be Scared About 2012