Will Hernandez

Tempo Payments Inc. last week announced the launch of the Doctors Without Borders affinity decoupled debit card.

The Houston ATM network operator said Tuesday that it would install 215 ATMs in the New York area that will bear the logo of the New York credit union.

Creditors are planning to meet July 26 to determine how to respond to Springbok Services Inc.'s recent bankruptcy filing.

Nokia Corp. plans to include near-field communication chips in its smart phones, beginning next year. The move would likely make Nokia the first handset maker to deliver NFC technology in a major rollout.

Acculynk Inc. said Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC's Jeanie electronic funds transfer network will later this year support the company's Internet PIN debit payment system.

The New York banking company will offer the stickers to customers to replace the contactless fobs they received last year as part of a pilot program in those markets, said a person familiar with Citi's plan, though the source did not know which cities.

The results of a recent consumer survey found that 68% of respondents oppose a proposal for interchange reform, contradicting merchant association claims.

The CPI Card Group is manufacturing the next-generation of mobile payment stickers for Discover Financial Services and MasterCard Worldwide, the Littleton, Colo.-based card producer announced last week. Both stickers use contactless technology from Inside Contactless SA.

InComm Inc. has announced its purchase of Coinstar Inc.'s electronic payment services operations. The deal came Thursday, less than a month after InComm bought the social networking gift card provider GroupCard.

Fledging mobile-payments company RegaloCard LLC announced May 26 a distribution agreement with IDT Corp. to place its card-based funds-transfer service in more than 150,000 retailers across the United States.

Mobile phones equipped with near-field communication chips are unlikely to become widely used payment tools for at least five years, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Though they are optimistic that near-field-communication mobile payments can make a splash in the United States, industry executives disagree on whether consumers want to carry phones with the technology.

Few details have emerged about plans to create a pan-European debit card network called Monnet, which would compete with Visa Europe and MasterCard Worldwide. The European Central Bank, however, is firmly behind the creation of a scheme to create more network competition in the region.

Travelex Group, a London-based distributor of foreign-currency reloadable prepaid cards that offer consumers a locked in foreign-exchange rate, has added a text-message alert service to notify cardholders when account funds drop below 100 pounds (US$149 or 117 euros).

Though industry observers generally expect mobile banking to become a mainstream technology with consumers, consumers ages 18 to 25 remain the biggest users of the service, new research suggests.

Citing a desire to remain competitive and drive issuer participation and innovation in its network, Visa Inc. in April increased the interchange rate it applies to purchases switched through its Interlink PIN-debit electronic funds transfer network.

To settle a European Commission antitrust investigation, Visa Europe has agreed to cap interchange rates for certain debit transactions in the region at 0.2%, a step that could help advance the mission of the Single Euro Payments Area.

Michigan is preparing to test a system that lets merchants accept government benefit payment cards with mobile phones.

The payment processor TenderCard Inc. has agreed to let its independent sales organization partners sell a virtual gift card system developed by Giftango Corp.

The electronic payments provider sQuidcard Ltd. has introduced a contactless loyalty card that it said could help small, independent retailers in the U.K. develop deeper relationships with customers.