Technology

Prepaid debit cards that come with celebrity endorsements over the years have showed little staying power while whipping up storm clouds of controversy.

While the pace of foreclosures eased in 2011, a recent spike in default filings could indicate an uptick is coming in 2012, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace of foreclosure filings.

Consumer loan delinquencies fell in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 for the first time in 2011 thanks to improving job and housing markets, the American Bankers Association said.

Payment innovation quickened its pace from technology to strategic partnerships last year, setting the stage for some dominant trends in 2012.

Independent safety-science firm UL LLC signaled its desire to enter growing payment areas such as mobile transactions with its purchase this week of Australia-based payment card security-assessment company Witham Laboratories Ltd.

The Better Business Bureau has named a phishing scam that cites the organization as the top scam of 2011.

Shifting business-to-business payments from paper invoices to commercial cards streamlines certain processes, but many companies still cling to time-sapping policies requiring managers to check each transaction manually looking for mistakes and abuse.

Citigroup Inc.'s new Facebook application moves the ball forward for banks that want to combine social media with banking activity, but it also raises concerns about privacy and security of consumer data.

Justice Department lawyers say a former government informant convicted of hacking into TJX and more than a dozen other leading retailers was never authorized by the U.S. Secret Service, which was employing him as an undercover informant, to steal data on more than 150 million credit card accounts.

The economy may be crawling back to normal in some sectors, but credit card industry revenue continues to fall, according to one longtime observer.