Card Briefs: EBT Ruling Against Citicorp to Be Appealed

This week's state Supreme Court decision overturning an electronic benefits transfer award to Citicorp will be appealed, said a spokesman for New York State Department of Social Services.

A year ago, New York, acting on behalf of a seven state consortium, awarded Citibank EBT Services a potentially lucrative contract for the electronic distribution of welfare benefits. New York is the lead state for the consortium, known as the Northeast Coalition.

But the Check Cashers Association of New York and Transactive Corp., a unit of lottery processor G-Tech, successfully sued the Social Services Department and Citicorp in the case decided on Tuesday.

Terry McGrath, the agency spokesman, said Connecticut's program is already in place and Massachusetts has negotiated and signed its contract with Citicorp. "We are confident the (decision) will be overturned," said Mr. McGrath.