In Brief (four items)

BB&T Equips ATMs To Sell Phone Cards

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - BB&T Corp. is offering InComm prepaid phone cards at 450 automated teller machines in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.The price of the card is electronically deducted from a checking or savings account. The banking company plans to expand the service to 200 more ATMs by yearend.

InComm is a division of Atlanta-based U.S. South Communications Inc. BB&T has $41.5 billion of assets and operates 619 banking offices in Georgia, West Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.


Capital One U.K. Unit Picks Document Tool

BOSTON - Tower Technology Ltd. said its document management software has been chosen for use in Capital One Financial Corp.'s call center in the United Kingdom. Capital One, which is based in Falls Church, Va., has opened an operations center in Nottingham, England."The potential of [Tower's] system is to greatly improve our speed of response in processing credit card applications and will underpin all our customer service activities," said a Capital One spokeswoman.


Visa: Sign-Ups Brisk For Premium Card

SAN FRANCISCO - A year after introducing its Signature card for the affluent market, Visa U.S.A. is calling it "one of the fastest-growing premium credit cards ever," with 500,000 in circulation.Visa Signature comes with travel benefits and customer service perks. Issuers include Merrill Lynch & Co., Associates First Capital Corp., Capital One Financial Corp., Citigroup, and the First USA division of Bank One Corp.

"When we launched Visa Signature, there were more than nine million households in the United States with annual incomes exceeding $100,000 - and an additional 62 millionaires have been created every day over the past year," said Jeff Kann, executive vice president of consumer credit products for Visa U.S.A. "Visa Signature has provided issuers with a tremendous opportunity to tap into this growing affluent segment by offering valued services and features beyond traditional payment."


Providian: Collections Unit Has $1B of Pacts

SAN FRANCISCO - Providian Financial Corp. said its year-old First Select Corp. subsidiary, which buys and works to recover bad debts, has obtained more than $1 billion of contracts with seven top credit card issuers.First Select buys the charged-off receivables and offers account holders a range of payment plans.

"Our success in achieving the $1 billion milestone in our first year demonstrates that our operating philosophy is right on the mark," said Roger Van Duinen, president of First Select. "Our goal is to bring value both to the financial institutions from whom we purchased the accounts and to our newly acquired customers by helping them to rebuild their financial strength."

Shailesh J. Mehta, Providian's chairman and chief executive officer, said, "First Select fits well with Providian's mission of helping people build or rebuild, responsibly use, and protect their credit."

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