Fintech

Card companies have used celebrities and fun characters in their brand advertising for years to hawk their products as spokespeople, but integrating the celebrity brand into a card product may be better strategically for card-program success, one observer contends.

Mobile payments in India received a major boost on June 27 when Nokia India Pvt. Ltd., the Indian arm of the Finnish mobile handset maker, announced it would offer its Mobile Money service on all Nokia devices.

S1 Corp. and Fundtech Ltd. have not competed directly, but they sold to many of the same customers. As such, their announced merger would substantially boost the power of each company’s sales team as they pursue new markets and deepen existing customer relationships.

Another company has announced a mobile payments and marketing app in what some are calling the Wild West of mobile payments.

A San Francisco-based startup called Card.io is offering software that enables cell-phone cameras to scan credit card information, thus moving ecommerce from the Web to mobile phones and creating a new product for ISOs to sell to merchants.

Small and midsize businesses now have an alternative to traditional card-payment processing channels through a new mobile-payment processing service rolled out earlier this month by Australia’s Commonwealth Bank Ltd.

Two payment transaction software and service providers, S1 and Fundtech, have agreed to a "merger of equals" today in a deal valued at $700 million. Upon closing of the transaction, S1 shareholders will own approximately 55 percent and Fundtech shareholders approximately 45 percent of the combined company. The combined company will be headquartered at S1's headquarters in Atlanta and will be called Fundtech.

PLEASANTON, Calif.-Summer vacation may have just begun, but 1st United Services Credit Union here is already thinking about back to school-or, more specifically, its "Back to Schools Challenge," which gives local institutions the chance to win as much as $10,000.

MARIETTA, Ga.-Less versus more could mean a whole lot more business for LGE Community CU here, thanks to a new commercial being aired in the region.

By itself the drop in deposit account service fees caused by the year-old consumer overdraft protections is a minor problem for FNB Inc. of Dennison, Ohio.