Merchant

MCX, a retailer-driven mobile commerce initiative, is being steadily built upon retailers' desire to control their own customer data and possibly lessen the sting of, or bypass totally, card payment interchange fees. But it must still deliver two key things: a brand and a product.

MagicBand, a system that Walt Disney Co. has been testing all year with a limited number of employees and Walt Disney World resort patrons, seems to be poised for success based on what looks like an extreme level of commitment to it — so far.

Atlanta, Ga.-based Cardlytics Inc. plans to support location-based card-linked marketing with push notifications in the first quarter of 2014.

MasterCard is placing more emphasis on things like airline boarding, wearable computing and many other things the card network contends can be used to win a consumer's business long before the payment is made.

A federal court judge in Florida has banned the defendants behind an alleged credit card interest rate reduction scam from selling debt-relief service and telemarketing any services.

Card marketing and technology company Dynamics launched a new game-based rewards system that card issuers can use with traditional plastic cards, with Key Bank among the first issuers to offer the program to consumers.

DoubleBeam is using electronic checks in its mobile payment system to cut merchants' costs on interchange.

Patrick Pinto, a former vice president at Oxford Collection Agency, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to two years of probation for bribing an executive at U.S. Bank. Pinto also must pay a $10,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

The Societe de transport de Montreal (STM) is testing a loyalty program that ties user preferences and special offers to transit payment cards, a move that's also designed to shift rider volume from peak times.

The digital payments initiative clearXchange is run by three banks that make up more than 50% of the online banking market in the U.S., but it still has a lot of work cut out for it.