Victoria Finkle

MasterCard Inc. will start charging a new acquirer licensing fee in July, the company confirmed with American Banker on Thursday.

NetSpend posted solid fourth-quarter results on Thursday, as the prepaid card company bulked up its retail and banking partnerships and weathered increased scrutiny of its industry.

Wells Fargo says its remittance transaction volume grew at a record pace of 27% in 2011 over the prior year, thanks in part to substantial growth on the East Coast where the bank has largely finalized conversions of former Wachovia branches.

American Express in January reported a modest slowdown in growth in the fourth quarter, while MasterCard earlier this month said growth remained strong in the region.

Fees for closing an account within a few months of opening it shouldn’t be lumped in with truly abusive industry practices.

Three months after a new rule capped debit card swipe fees, Visa Inc. is weathering a slowdown in its U.S. debit business, though it has so far avoided the doomsday scenarios once predicted.

Citigroup is partnering with the Enterprise Community Loan Fund and Next Street Financial to invest $30 million in small businesses.

Banks have faced onslaughts of litigation for several years over their credit card payment protection plans. But so far legal efforts to challenge or change the business have ended in dismissals or relatively small settlements.

Banks have been accused of ripping off consumers for insurance-like credit card products. Now critics who say the payment protection plans are a racket could get a boost from federal regulators.

The credit card industry is inching closer to settling yet another challenge to its controversial interchange system, as MasterCard Inc. on Thursday reported setting aside $495 million tied to pending litigation.

Visa chairman and chief executive Joe Saunders downplayed concerns over the costs associated with implementing its new digital wallet at the company's annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday.

Banks are going to new lengths to burnish their image in the public eye, with Wells Fargo & Co. now taking its very own red carpet moment.

Discover Financial Services is anticipating a joint enforcement action from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the marketing of its credit card payment protection products, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing posted late Thursday afternoon.

Banks lost billions of dollars in overdraft revenue last year, even as they passed on higher fees to consumers, according to a study by Moebs Services Inc.

While Citigroup Inc. struggles to get rid of its consumer lending unit, banks including Wells Fargo & Co. and SunTrust Banks Inc. are expanding their similar businesses.

The rebound of credit card lending is having nasty side effects for Capital One Financial Corp. and American Express Co., which are increasingly spending more to compete for the most credit-worthy customers.

Target Corp., which has tried for years to sell its credit card receivables, said Wednesday that it has temporarily "suspended" its efforts — and is spending more than $2.8 billion to divorce itself from JPMorgan Chase.

Cost cuts "certainly won't be the primary driver for earnings in the future," says CFO Timothy Sloan. CEO John Stumpf says Wells Fargo is "kicking lots of tires" for potential acquisitions.

A Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday upheld the controversial practice of including mandatory arbitration clauses in credit card contracts.

Personal-finance guru Suze Orman is usually the one dishing out the tough love. But the moment she put her name on a reloadable prepaid card, she was the one taking it.