Technology

Five of the nation’s largest credit card issuers reported improvements in September charge-off rates on outstanding receivables, prompting Moody’s Investors Service to suggest in an Oct. 18 report that August’s uptick in charge-off rates was a blip, not the reversal of an overall trend of improving charge-off rates.

Mitek Systems Inc. is debuting a mobile application that enables consumers to pay their bills using images of the bills captured with their smartphones.

Citigroup Inc. is reporting total revenues from Citi-branded cards of $4.16 billion for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, up 76.3% from $2.36 billion during the same three months last year. Citi card income from continuing operations totaled $454 million, up considerably from $6 million a year earlier.

The Paysafecard Group has brought its prepaid voucher product to the United States as it tries to capture a piece of the online gaming market.

Staples Inc. earlier this month began offering its customers the option to deposit certain store rebates into their PayPal accounts, a spokesperson for the Framingham, Mass.-based retailers confirms to PaymentsSource.

Companies continue to release mobile point-of-sale acceptance services amid few, if any, signs of the trend abating.

Despite an increase in spending on Visa Inc. cards in both July and September (August saw a decline), card-spending growth dropped during the third quarter as consumers remained cautious about their finances, according to Visa Europe’s UK Expenditure Index released on Oct. 7.

Huntington Bancshares Inc. is rewriting its mobile strategy through the hiring of mobile-banking expert Jeff Dennes from USAA Federal Savings Bank.

A shakeout among debt-relief firms is likely as such companies restructure their operations to conform with new Federal Trade Commission rules that take effect this month, experts say.

Independent sales organizations and acquirers will have work to do because of the Federal Reserve Board’s impending regulations that will set policy for establishing “reasonable and proportional” debit card interchange rates, panelists at the Western States Acquirers Association conference in San Diego told attendees this week.