Steve Bills

The hardware works, and consumers worldwide think it's a cool idea. Still, near-field communication chips have made about zero progress morphing mobile phones into contactless payment tools.

U.S. Bancorp has hired Total System Services Inc. to provide card processing services for its consumer-directed health-care benefit cards.

Citigroup Inc. announced Thursday that it has integrated credit card account information into its downloadable Citi Mobile application for the Apple Inc. iPhone.

Staring at the potential loss of billions in overdraft fees, some banks are generating income by abandoning the commoditylike nature of checking accounts.

A new entrant in the tax-payment business is playing the price card to compete against two established companies.

Fiserv Inc. has a new integrated cash deposit system that its customer banks can offer to corporate banking customers in the retailer segment.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., already a dominant provider of payment automation services for large corporate clients, is trying to extend its reach to smaller companies.

U.S. Bancorp's merchant acquiring unit, Elavon, has started a hosted payment gateway it calls Fusebox.

Del R. Tonguette, a consultant in New Albany, Ohio, and longtime debit industry executive, died Saturday, apparently of a stroke exacerbated by blood thinners, his wife, Diane, said Monday.

ACH Federal has the first automated clearing house system built from the ground up to comply with recent rules by Nacha, the electronic payments association, designed to fight fraud and tighten compliance.

The British wireless operator Orange on Thursday launched a contactless credit card, co-branded with Barclaycard, that features text-message alerts and financial-management tools.

The card processor Total System Services Inc. on Thursday announced an agreement to provide payment services to Degussa Bank GmbH's corporate and business clients.

Fundtech Ltd. said Wednesday that it expects 2010 earnings of between 32 cents and 42 cents a share and revenue of between $132 million and $135 million.

Jack Henry & Associates Inc. announced Wednesday that First Hope Bank in Hope, N.J., has completed the in-house installation of the vendor's SilverLake System for core processing.

SunTrust Banks Inc. has completed the move of its automated teller machine network to its main data communication system, the payments software vendor ACI Worldwide Inc. announced Wednesday.

Count the merchant acquirer First American Payment Systems LP among the U.S. payment processors looking abroad for growth.

At the start of 2009, consumers said, almost timidly, that it would be nice to be able to manage their bank accounts with mobile phones. Now, they are demanding such services.

The card company Discover Financial Services Inc. has extended through 2015 an information technology outsourcing agreement with International Business Machines Corp.

An online payment start-up, WePay Inc., has raised $1.65 million from the venture capital firm August Capital in Menlo Park, Calif., and a group of angel investors, including Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal Inc., the TechCrunch blog reported last week.

UniRush LLC announced its prepaid RushCard has added a card-to-card funds transfer feature for users who want to transfer money between prepaid Visa RushCards.