John Adams

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.

Despite some glitches that are hampering vigorous adoption, the companies targeting mobile payments are finding success in forging brand connections. The problem is their connections are with narrow constituencies, and are often based on competencies beyond mobile payments.

The use of electronic payments can have a positive impact on national economies, with nearly $127 billion added to the U.S.'s gross domestic product (GDP) in the past four years, according to a study conducted for Visa by Moody's Analytics.

Eager to ply consumer data analytics as a carrot for issuers, MasterCard Advisors on Thursday announced a development partnership with data analytics company Mu Sigma, in which MasterCard purchased an equity stake.

This week's big bust of a credit card theft ring emphasizes the difficulty issuers face in locating fraudsters and the limitations of technology that can go only so far in mitigating the threat.

The Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) standards don't appear to have a lot in common, but there is one alarming similarity — the tortoise-like pace of migration which threatens deadlines for both.

MACH, looking for a way to sell carrier billing services in the U.S. and expand in other markets, says it’s found the right partner in mobile payments company payvia.

Loss mitigation strategies for the payments business are getting a technology makeover that includes the same kind of emerging analysis used to attract consumers in the first place.

As Loylogic traverses the world looking for more than just a single partner for its rewards redemption app, it's attempting to sweeten the user experience by reducing the amount of navigation needed at the point of sale.

Social networking has become so common and broad-based in its use that banks have no choice but to incorporate social networking into their marketing efforts. Here are five ways they can do that.

Western Union is expanding its relationship with MasterCard on two fronts, by focusing narrowly on tax preparation stores with a prepaid card and expanding its remittance program in Latin America.