Fintech

NEW ORLEANS–Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will begin rolling out automated MoneyCenters next week.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia on June 9 dismissed a suit by Diebold Inc. requesting its insurer cover $6 million in losses from the theft by ATM supplier Tri-States Armored Services of some $50 million of cash it was supposed to be using to replenish ATMs for credit unions and banks.

Mirroring the growing chatter about the possibility of U.S. card issuers one day adopting EMV chip-and-PIN technology, panel discussions related to the topic were well attended during the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference in May.

NEW ORLEANS–For all talk about how mobile technology can rapidly bring financial services to emerging markets, it has really only worked in a few countries so far, most notably Kenya and the Philippines. Much of mobile money’s success in Kenya can be attributed to the work of Michael Joseph, a strategic advisor to Safaricom, who discussed here on June 7 his experiences building a new financial infrastructure in that country.

Hoping to stimulate card sales volume and promote its prepaid offerings, MasterCard Worldwide is teaming with Expedia Inc. for a summer vacation promotion dangling free gas to travelers.

U.S. Bancorp plans to begin issuing EMV chip credit cards that also include a tap-and-go payment function to U.S. customers this month.

Verification using India’s national biometric-identification system could provide a second level of authorization needed to secure card-present transactions initiated with magnetic stripe cards under a proposal outlined in a central bank working group report released June 2. It also may serve as an alternative to moving to EMV chip-and-PIN cards.

Bharti Airtel Telecom Co. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Pan-African banking group Ecobank Transnational Inc. to provide mobile-banking services across Africa, the companies announced June 7.

Visa Inc.’s acquisition of Fundamo will help it use mobile payments to serve more underbanked consumers abroad, according to the card network, which on June 9 announced a deal in which is will pay about $110 million for the Cape Town, South Africa-based mobile payments company.

The chances that Citigroup Inc.’s credit cardholders will experience card fraud stemming from a recent online data breach are low, but those customers are likely to be the target of phishing scams.