Fintech

A wider availability of smartphones combined with more contactless acceptance at merchant locations should generate some $71 billion in Near Field Communication-enabled mobile payments worldwide by 2015, new research suggests.

Euronet Worldwide Inc. and financial services software partner Wipit Inc. are hoping to convert cash-paying consumers into “wipit” accountholders with a free mobile-payment application they plan to launch in the fourth quarter.

RALEIGH, N.C. – In the face of new debit fees by big banks, Coastal FCU said tomorrow–the day the Durbin Amendment goes into effect–it will begin paying members higher dividends on their “Go Green” checking accounts the more they use their debit cards.

I’ve identified the perfect example to illustrate the highly competitive nature of the card networks when it comes to setting interchange prices: interchange rates for consumer debit card purchases.

Picking up where early-Internet entrepreneurs left off a decade ago, Jingit LLC is working with U.S. Bancorp to revitalize the business model of compensating consumers for watching ads online.

Count the Federal Reserve Board’s restrictions on debit card interchange fees that take effect Oct. 1 as yet another reason for banks to close branches.

Does Bank of America Corp. plan to charge for debit card use at the point of sale because it is shortsighted or because it is too bloated to compete against smaller institutions for consumer accounts?

Bank of America Corp., the nation’s largest issuer of debit cards, plans to start charging its checking customers $5 per month, or $60 annually, if they use their debit cards to make purchases.

Banks have long argued that processing debit card transactions by starting with the largest dollar balances and working their way to the smallest benefited customers. But a popular vendor of "high-to-low" debit transaction processing software has an alternative explanation of what might have motivated them: "Multiple Millions $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$."

Euronet Worldwide Inc.’s epay division has signed an exclusive agreement to process prepaid mobile airtime transactions in the independent retail segment for Sprint Nextel Corp.’s Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA and Assurance Wireless no-contract wireless brands, the Leawood, Kan.-based company announced Sept. 29.