Compucredit to Cull Fleet's Rejection List
ATLANTA - Compucredit Corp. said it has signed a marketing agreement with FleetBoston Financial Corp. that will let it offer credit cards to people who do not meet Fleet's lending criteria.Under the agreement, people rejected when they apply for Fleet credit cards would become eligible to get a prescreened offer for Compucredit's Aspire Visa, which is targeted to the subprime market.
David Hanna, chief executive officer at Compucredit, said the company will use its proprietary decision-making technology to choose consumers it deems creditworthy from those rejected by Fleet.
Concord EFS Promotes Execs from EPS Ranks
MEMPHIS - Concord EFS Inc., the Memphis-based transaction processor, has promoted two senior executives from its Electronic Payment Services subsidiary, which Concord bought last year.Edward T. Haslam, chief financial officer of EPS, has been named Concord's CFO, and Steve A. Lynch, senior vice president of technology at EPS, has been promoted to chief information officer of the parent company. EPS owned the MAC network, a leading debit and automated teller machine network, and Buypass Corp., a point of sale acquirer and third-party payment processor.
In addition Ryan Ramey, former sales director at Pilot Corp., was named senior vice president in charge of Concord's transportation services.
Discover Service Deal To Aid Sales of Surplus
RIVERWOODS, Ill. - Discover Financial Services Inc. has signed an agreement with TradeOut.com, a marketplace for businesses to buy and sell surplus inventory and services, giving Discover merchants access to a cobranded Web site that offers TradeOut's services."We are constantly looking for new ways to provide smart, online financial solutions for our merchants," said Tom Dailey, senior vice president of Discover Business Services.
Mr. Dailey said the agreement will let Discover merchants "efficiently dispose of their excess inventory" through the discoverbiz.com site.
TradeOut is based in Ardsley, N.Y.
Wells Testing ATMs Adapted for the Blind
SAN FRANCISCO - Wells Fargo & Co. said it now has 20 automated teller machines in California that "talk" to the blind.The test ATMs in the San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego areas speak instructions to users who cannot read information off an ATM screen. Last year, under threat of a lawsuit from the California Council of the Blind, Wells vowed to install such a capability at each of its more than 1,500 ATM sites in California by the end of 2003.
Bank executives have said Wells was working on the technology even before the advocacy group approached it.
In March, Bank of America Corp. became the first banking company to promise a national rollout of such machines. It has committed itself to installing 2,500 of them within three years in two of its largest markets - California and Florida.
Citigroup Inc., which also faced the prospect of a legal challenge, agreed to test such technology at five sites in California and to negotiate a more permanent agreement after a six-month test that began last fall.
"We are proud of our commitment to serve our diverse group of customers, including those who are blind or have low vision," said Terri Dial, Wells' head of retail banking in California.
