Analytics

FICO announced the general availability of FICO Debt Manager solution version 8.0 for collections and recovery.

As credit card issuers retool their offerings to cope with new industry regulations and a more-cautious consumer mood following the recession, Barclaycard US hopes to succeed by bucking a few key trends.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has removed two Ingenico S.A. PIN pads from the list of approved PIN-entry devices following reports they are susceptible to breaches.

FICO, formerly called Fair Isaac Corp., has expanded its relationship with Middle East and Africa sales partner PIC Solutions to include the insurance and retail sectors, the financial services company announced Wednesday.

The rise of small card-not-present transactions for virtual goods and other online services is helping to fertilize runaway growth of micropayment-based card-fraud schemes, at least one consultant contends.

Two payments companies, BluePay Processing LLC and Trustwave, separately last week announced new encryption services for merchants.

The Federal Trade Commission on June 28 asked a federal court to halt an international identity-fraud scheme that it says generated more than $10 million in fraudulent micropayment charges on U.S. consumers’ credit and debit cards.

Consumer confidence fell sharply in June after rising for three consecutive months, The Conference Board Inc., a New York-based research organization, reported June 29.

Financial institutions could experience significant drops in the rate of delinquent accounts by establishing multiple lending relationships with individual customers, the results of new research by credit bureau TransUnion suggest.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard last week warned payday loan stores not to try to keep operating as usual after a law authorizing their high-interest loans expires at the end of June.

U.S. consumers filed 136,142 bankruptcies in May, a 9% increase over the 124,838 filings in May 2009 but down 6% from April, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

The Federal Trade Commission named several new defendants and added charges concerning so-called "forensic audits" to its lawsuit against an operation that allegedly bilked homeowners who were trying to lower their mortgage payments. The action is part of an ongoing crackdown on scams that target consumers who are behind in their mortgage payments or at risk of foreclosure.

FICO, the provider of the ubiquitous credit score, last week said its FICO Labs was awarded eight new patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering credit score interpretation, fraud detection, credit line optimization and other analytics.

The Better Business Bureau serving Central California is warning businesses to avoid collection agency Maxwell, Turner & Associates Inc. The Fresno, Calif. agency has an F-rating for 32 unanswered complaints within the last 10 months.

The number of foreclosure filings - notices of default, auction notices and bank repossessions - fell by 9% from March to April, and 2% compared with April 2009, reports RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties.

U.S. consumer credit scores are holding steady, with the average score reaching 670 in April, up one point since the beginning of the year, according to new data from Credit Karma Inc.

Maryland's consumer protection division announced it reached a $20,000 settlement with payment processor MAP LLC for allegedly failing to properly dispose of consumers' personal information.

A consensus is emerging among industry watchers that banks will return to so-called normalized earnings by 2012, with loan losses finally easing to pre-recession levels.

S&P Valuation and Risk Strategies, part of Standard & Poor's, launched a credit score tool that enables users to compare credit profiles of more than 26,000 companies worldwide.

U.S. bankruptcy filings by consumers and businesses fell in April, but were still at the second-highest level since changes to the law in 2005 made it harder for individuals to seek protection from creditors.