Technology

U.S. consumers’ credit scores dipped slightly during the recession and the total number of credit card accounts per household declined, but average credit scores remain well within the prime range, according to new data from Experian PLC.

Transaction processor First Data Corp. and online-payment service PayPal Inc. are reporting double-digit increases in consumer Black Friday spending this year compared with the same day in 2009, with First Data saying same-store sales returned to prerecession levels.

Roam Data is making available a Roampay Swipe card reader that plugs into the audio jack of BlackBerry smartphones, the Boston-based firm announced Nov. 30.

The University of Missouri-St. Louis received a $1.13 million grant from the Federal Trade Commission to examine the accuracy of information kept by the major U.S. credit reporting agencies.

Consumer confidence rose in November to its highest mark in five months, a sign that people are hopeful about improving labor market conditions, according to a report released today by The Conference Board, an industry group.

While most bank mobile apps are focused initially on iPhones, then move to Blackberry and Android in subsequent rollouts, it would appear that Android and iPhone are the way to go as BlackBerry falls behind its two rivals in sales.

The National Payment Corp. of India on Nov. 23 rolled out its instant interbank mobile fund-transfer service, which enables customers of seven banks in the country to exchange funds to one another.

After piloting an online payment network that it says guards against potential identity theft, JetPay LLC will be providing that same platform, Secure Vault Payments, to its own clients.

Visa Europe recently announced a partnership with the University College Dublin Centre for Cybercrime Investigation to help fight card-not-present fraud online, Visa Europe reported earlier this month.

Michigan State University FCU said yesterday it renewed its contract with Card Services for CUs to process its 86,000 credit and 116,000 signature debit accounts.