Fintech

Discover Financial Services’ agreement with online-payments specialist Mazooma illustrates Discover’s goal to be in the forefront of all payments services, not just those related to credit or debit cards, a top executive with the card brand tells PaymentsSource.

Mobile payments will surpass 141.1 million users worldwide this year, a 38.2% increase from 102.1 million users in 2010, according to Gartner estimates released July 21. Worldwide mobile payment sales volume is forecast to total $86.1 billion, up 75.9% from 2010 volume of $48.9 billion.

Preventing a damaged reputation, more so than cost, is what drives online merchants to improve their data security and comply with industry standards. And more merchants are starting to use third parties to store their payments data to improve security and protect their reputations, new research suggests.

The U.S. prepaid gift card market has reached a point where consumers have become comfortable giving merchant’s proprietary cards as gifts and even reloading them for long-term use, new survey findings suggest.

SEATTLE – Members of Watermark CU on Wednesday approved a merger with Sound CU in Tacoma, which will form the fifth-largest credit union in Washington state with almost $1.2 billion in assets.

A federal judge on July 20 approved a settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide that bars the two networks from enforcing bylaws preventing merchants steering business to less expensive forms of payment.

Merchants selling digital content likely grimace at the thought of a consumer making a 99-cent purchase using a credit card because of the fees involved with that transaction.

Buoyed by a reduction in loan-loss reserves and a modest increase in credit and debit card purchase volume, U.S. Bancorp on July 20 said second-quarter net income for its payments services unit doubled from the same period last year.

Giftango Corp. wants to give merchants a head start on the mobile-wallet age by placing two-dimensional barcodes on the back of their proprietary, closed-loop gift cards to enable consumers to convert the plastic to a digital format via a smartphone camera, among other capabilities.

Banks are still digesting a full plate of mortgage and other economic woes, but that is not stopping them from adding ambitious technology projects to their diet, if the first of the vendor earnings reports is an indication.