IMGCAP(1)]
Bling Nation Ltd. today announced it is launching a debit network geared for community banks that sidesteps existing debit networks. The goal is to help smaller banks retain point-of-sale debit transactions and the fees they generate, Bling Nation says. A statement from the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company says it has been developing the Community Payment Network processing technology for three years. Bling Nation says merchants and banks should see lower costs for this service compared with more-established networks, though the statement did not say how much lower the fees might be or provide other details of the network. Bling Nation's network will enable banks to convert potential on-us debit transactions into actual on-us transactions. "We believe that community banks and credit unions should own any local debit transactions between their own [checking] customers and their merchant customers rather than a large payment provider or card issuer, and our technology has been carefully designed to make that a reality for them," Meyer Malka, Bling Nation co-CEO, said in the statement. Company executives were not immediately available to comment.
