Fintech

A strong holiday shopping season appears to have led some Americans to delay extra debt payments in December, but despite an end-of-year slowdown all 50 states ended the year with less credit card debt than when the year began, according to a recent report issued by CreditKarma.com.

HILO, Hawaii – CU Hawaii FCU has acquired Ka’u FCU in a merger, creating a $235-million credit union with more than 27,000 members.

COQUILLE, Ore. – Oregon First Community CU has completed the merger of SOFCU Community CU, creating a credit union with $710 million in assets and 30 branches serving more than 70,000 members.

Vending machine companies aren’t the only ones concerned about how new debit interchange fees will affect small-ticket purchases. Transportation agencies moving toward contactless card or mobile-based payments for fares could certainly join that mix, considering many of their customers spend less than $10 per ride.

UniRush LLC is eliminating a string of fees for its reloadable prepaid RushCard and is launching a new pricing plan for customers, the card marketer announced Jan. 26.

Green Dot Corp. is working with the AARP Foundation to issue a MasterCard-branded prepaid card in mid-February, the card marketer announced Jan. 26.

Credit card issuers quietly are testing a variety of new fees to help make up for other fee income wiped out last year when the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act went into effect, one analyst contends.

I naively thought that Suze Orman's new prepaid offering, the Approved Card, would help turn the tide of negativity. Instead, it has had the opposite effect, creating a seemingly endless echo chamber about the evils of prepaid.

Foreign exchange transactions provider RationalFX has launched in China a local version of Xendpay, its online funds-transfer service, the company announced Jan. 23.

Prepaid card companies have had great success at attracting the underbanked, but their prices remain high compared with banks', and they might have no choice but to keep them high.