Fintech

PHILADELPHIA — In his first speech since taking over for Elizabeth Warren as the public face of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Raj Date warned that the agency will take a firm stance when it identifies practices that are harmful for consumers.

As cuts in debit card interchange and changes in credit card regulations have threatened to reduce issuer-provided card rewards, some merchants have responded by working with issuers to bolster their rewards programs. In doing so, those retailers receive a direct line to card-spending consumers and give financial institutions a way to cover their card-rewards costs.

Internet PIN-debit once was seen as a way for merchants to earn a cheaper interchange rate on card-not-present transactions conducted online. That benefit, however, disappeared when the Federal Reserve Board recently cut the fees banks can charge merchants who accept debit cards. The new fees go into effect Oct. 1.

United Kingdom-based Ryanair Ltd. is giving consumers the opportunity to avoid what have become controversial airline booking fees when tickets are purchased with plastic.

Aiming to speed up ATM lines, especially for small-business customers, BMO Harris Bank N.A. plans to replace most of the bank’s current Diebold ATMs with NCR Corp. units that accept checks and cash simultaneously through a single slot, the companies said Sept. 14.

The board of the payments technology vendor Fundtech Ltd. plans to halt its intended merger with S1 Corp. after receiving a separate offer from the private equity firm GTCR.

At least three of the nation’s largest credit card issuers, as a result of their strategic actions and market positioning, may eke out growth this year despite the sluggish economy, according to a new report from Keefe, Bruyette and Woods.

A global payments report issued Sept. 15 by Capgemini and the Royal Bank of Scotland strikes a positive note: the use of e-payments is rising, while use of old-school checks and cash is fading.

Capital One Financial Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Fairbank says he believes the credit card business is headed for significant consolidation and that his company intends to be one of the industry's "endgame players."

Western Union Co., in a bid to leverage its core business outside the U.S., is poised to launch and expand its reloadable prepaid debit card product in markets where consumers typically send and receive multiple funds transfers throughout the year.