Technology

Financial institutions that serve military personnel, including USAA and Navy Federal Credit Union, are pressured to provide a wide range of remote access beyond that of traditional branch-heavy banks because the Web and mobile phone are often the only access points that consumers who are stationed overseas have to their financial institution.

Economists who participated in a recent survey largely believe high unemployment and weak consumer spending will hold back the U.S. economy into 2012 but most say a recession is not likely over the next 12 months.

In a significant boost to mobile payments in China, the country’s sole card processor China UnionPay Co. Ltd. has formed a partnership with handset maker HTC Corp. to launch a phone with a built-in mobile-payment facility.

Enhancing the services it provides to merchants using its transaction-processing services, the Shazam electronic funds network on Aug. 23 unveiled an innovation it says will streamline merchants’ processes, particularly when authorizing PIN-debit transactions online.

WASHINGTON — Bank regulators have long kept state officials at arm's length, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forging a close relationship with state attorneys general to enforce consumer banking laws.

A new point-of-sale terminal from Vivotech Inc. capable of accepting Near Field Communication mobile payments and chip-and-PIN transactions could help position U.S. merchants to embrace EMV smart card technology and perhaps save them money on security-standards compliance costs, the vendor believes.

A federal appeals court has sided with a United Kingdom-based payments processor in a long-running patent dispute with Visa Inc. subsidiary CyberSource Corp.

Not only are more banks offering mobile banking, more are also releasing multiple applications to try to appeal to as many types of banking customers as possible.

S1 Corp.'s board urged shareholders on Aug. 22 to vote in favor of the company's pending merger with Fundtech Ltd. because it says the deal would propel the technology vendors ahead of their competitors for payments software.

Transferring funds from a debit card account issued in the United States to one in Mexico will be a far easier process under an agreement Global Payout Inc. reached with a lending company in Mexico, a Global Payout executive says.