Fintech

Prepaid card fees are often considered unreasonably high, but that is rarely the case — even the ill-fated Kardashian Kard, which was so vilified for its fees that it shut down within a month of its launch, wasn't out of line in its pricing.

Online ticket payment provider Picatic has the business model of a museum—its customers are expected to pay, but the amount is at least partly up to the patron.

Electronic payments company Ixaris, which has about 20 corporate clients using its Ixaris Payments Server, will target corporate prepaid card-issuing financial institutions with the same technology.

Stockholm-based iZettle is bringing its mobile card reader into Mexico.

NetSpend stockholders voted to approve the prepaid card marketer's acquisition by Total System Services, clearing the way for the payments processor to complete the deal in mid-2013.

In the U.S., the only country converting to the EMV chip-card format with more than one debit network and a federal mandate that covers debit routing, the lingering uncertainty about how to code EMV payments “is pushing away many issuers and forcing them to wait” before offering cards, says Thomas Grouard Lillelund, senior manager of EMV and new technologies for CPI Card Group.

Wendy's International Inc. is beefing up the payment functions of its My Wendy's mobile app, which furthers the company's strategy and plays on other quick service retailer's success with mobile payments.

Amazon.com Inc. added a new payments system called the Amazon Birthday Gift, which allows users to send Amazon.com gift cards with birthday messages to friends on Facebook and allow other friends to contribute more to the card's balance.

Starbucks now receives over 10% of its U.S. transactions as mobile payments, and over 30% of its transactions are made with the mobile or plastic version of its Starbucks Card accounts.

Punchey's tossing its hat into the mobile payments ring with a mix of mobile card acceptance, social network-driven marketing and other services designed for merchants that handle larger payments.