Technology

First American Payment Systems LP has signed Lenoir, N.C.-based Parkway Bank as its 26th referral-bank partner, the Fort Worth, Texas-based independent sales organization announced Nov. 9.

When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti in January, the country’s government and relief organizations used services tied to mobile phones to pay victims for clean-up work. The program sought to empower Haitians with a means to buy food and other goods and services.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA will unveil more details on their joint venture to create a mobile payment network, which will be financially backed by Barclays PLC and Discover Financial Services, as soon as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the situation, Dow Jones is reporting.

Total U.S. bankruptcy filings rose 11% during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period a year ago. Data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts show there were 1,222,589 filings through September versus 1,100,035 in the first nine months of 2009.

In detecting merchant fraud, sometimes less is more.

Ixaris Systems Ltd. announced three payment applications Friday for its Opn platform.

Consumers have yet to widely adopt bill payment on smartphones — a trend some say is typical of new bill-pay systems.

Despite a 13.3% increase in payment-processing revenue, Newtek Business Services Inc. posted a third-quarter net loss of $342,000, the payment-services company announced Nov. 10. The company reported net income of $145,000 for the same quarter last year.

The ATM and debit card network practices of MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. are anticompetitive, and their policies harm consumers by forcing ATM owners to increase surcharge fees and reduce ATM deployment in convenient locations, claims the National Association of ATM ISOs and Operators.

VantageScore Solutions LLC in January will provide U.S. lenders with a major update of its credit-scoring model, this time using an unprecedented number of consumer credit files to more accurately reflect borrower risk following the economic downturn, the company recently announced.