Technology

Consumers again are spending with their credit cards to purchase discounted goods early in the holiday season, suggests First Data Corp.’s November SpendTrend payment card transaction analysis of all store sales activity that First Data processes.

Discover Financial Services is banking on a mobile future. Executives at the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company said during a Dec. 16 conference call with analysts to discuss its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that its deal with wireless carriers AT&T Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. will play heavily in its future.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve this afternoon proposed rules aimed at lowering interchange fees on debit transactions that could cap fees at 12 cents per transaction, about what the current median cost of authorization, clearance and settlement is (see proposal).

Maxamum Inc., a company launched to help consumers with thin credit histories establish credit, plans to provide a new business model combining non-traditional bill reporting services with a points-driven rewards model.

Washington Trust Bank in Spokane is offering mobile banking services to its customers through text, mobile Web and dedicated applications using mFoundry Inc.'s software.

Google Inc. is collecting the pieces for a major mobile payments system — but it is a long way from assembling them.

FICO announced Dec. 15 it has been awarded eight new patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for advances in credit scoring, credit account management, credit fraud management, insurance fraud management and other areas, bringing its portfolio of U.S. patents to more than 100.

A mobile-commerce company in Berkeley, Calif., says it has devised a means to enable mobile phones to communicate with chips in attached stickers to support true Near Field Communication payments and two-way communications between NFC chips.

William Smith relies on prepaid debit cards as he travels the country tattooing musicians in vans, trailers, hotel rooms and houses. The 32-year-old Ocala, Fla., tattooer (see photo) says he has no bank account, just a low-cost MoneyCard obtained from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

U.S. consumers’ average credit card debt fell by 7.4% through the first 11 months of the year, while the average November credit score dropped a point from October’s score, according to new data Credit Karma released Dec. 15.