John Adams

CO-OP Financial Services hopes the model used in one of the oldest staples of credit union cooperation, the shared branch, can drive new digital commerce innovation such as person-to-person payments and mobile remote deposit capture.

The chip-and-PIN version of PayPal's Here mobile card reader is set to debut overseas this year, but the splash will be felt in the U.S. as well.

At the Apple Store, people don't pay the same way they do everywhere else. They swipe cards on mobile devices and accept emailed receipts instead of printed ones. Now that Google is reportedly kicking the tires on a retail store concept, maybe it can do the same, putting Google Wallet in the spotlight.

Seeing an opportunity to mitigate the growing problem of student loan debt, student finance companies such as SimpleTuition and Sallie Mae are expanding debt management offers, including the use of card payment rewards.

In 2012, identity fraud incidents increased by more than one million victims. Fraudsters stole more than $21 billion overall—the highest amount in three years, according to Javelin Strategy & Research.

CoreFirst Bank and Trust is under pressure on two fronts when it comes to payroll cards. It faces strong competition from large banks and other rivals, as well as a heavy state and national regulatory burden.

Card issuers are increasingly using social networks, coupons and rewards to boost mobile payments, but it’s a plan that can backfire if the initiatives get the wrong mix of marketing, demographics and delivery channels.

To give banks another way to interact with customers online, Cardlytics' Facebook rewards app takes the same technology it offers through online banking sites and makes it accessible through Facebook.

Celltick, which integrates mobile payments, targeted marketing and coupons via partnerships with payment providers such as telecoms, plans to target Europe and North America with a program that it contends will provide better customer retention than Groupon, which has embarked on its own mobile payments expansion to improve relationships with merchants.

Visa's introduction of a global mobile money program doesn't make it a pioneer in using handsets to tap underserved locales, but it does bring scale, open-loop flexibility and likely a lot of future bank issuers to a market that's currently heavy on regional telecom partnerships with closed-loop systems.

While the U.S. inches toward adoption of the EMV chip-card standard, some card makers and issuers are finding they need to move faster than others.

Visa's introduction of a global mobile money program doesn't make it a pioneer in using handsets to tap underserved locales, but it does bring scale, open-loop flexibility and likely a lot of future bank issuers to a market that's currently heavy on regional telecom partnerships with closed-loop systems.

Visa's launch of a plug-and-play mobile money platform speaks to a rapidly maturing trend of using mobility to spread financial services to underbanked consumers and developing countries.

Visa's launch of a plug-and-play mobile money platform speaks to a rapidly maturing trend of using mobility to spread financial services to underbanked consumers and developing countries.

At a time when every prepaid card seems to have a celebrity's face attached to it, GiftCards.com is looking to add a personality to its own lineup — and it's looking at a finance star, not a pop star.

The prepaid card provider BillMyParents has hired Kim Petry to be its new chief financial officer, replacing Jonathan Shultz, in an appointment that’s scheduled to take effect in mid-to-late February.

The PCI Council’s directions for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards are expanding as mobile commerce grows and when combined with local differences in diverse markets, the new guidance statements can be a compliance challenge for issuers that operate in multiple nations. The use of “compliance-as-a-service,” or CaaS, to provide managed monitoring and compliance updates to keep up with changes is an emerging option for large card issuers.

EBay’s foray into mobile wallets via its PayPal unit is drawing consumers’ attention—giving it an inroad to compete with myriad other entrants flooding the mobile payments market, according to PayPal’s Mark Lavelle.

ERN is launching a product that attempts to meld issuer and retailer spending details to produce real-time offers at the point of sale. It faces plenty of competition in its efforts to bring granularity to marketing.

To get in front of the growing problem of user complaints tied to mobile payments, First Direct is using online video to put a human face on its replies to a frustrated group of customers.