Technology

Total System Services Inc., known as TSYS, plans to reduce expenses and employee headcount in anticipation of another difficult year. The Columbus, Ga.-based transaction processor believes it will see continued constriction in its business until the economy begins to recover and unemployment levels fall.

The debate over credit and debit card interchange this week went local when California State Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, chairman of the state’s Banking and Finance Committee, conducted a hearing on credit card interchange rates.

Cardtronics Inc.’s agreement to deploy ATMs aboard five Carnival Cruise Line ships signals Carnival wants more control of the lucrative shipboard ATM business in which cardholders pay surcharge fees as high as $5 per cash withdrawal, says a Cardtronics rival.

Citizens of Dubai last year used the mPay mobile-payment service to make 8,380 payments worth 1.5 million dirham (US$408,386 or 289,894 euros), an official from Dubai government tells PaymentsSource. This represents a massive spike from 2008, when Dubai residents made only 298 mPay transactions worth 25,000 dirham, he says.

RegaloCard, a Miami-based mobile-payments company, has added two retailers–Universo Cellular in El Salvador and Cemaco in Guatemala–to its mobile funds-transfer network.

Users of China Mobile in Shanghai can now use their mobile phones to pay for their Metro transportation fares, according to a statement from the country’s largest telecom operator. The service will allow users to make payments at the turnstiles using mobile phones equipped to support contactless technology.

Florida's faltering real estate market - hurt by the highest residential foreclosure rate in the U.S. - has left some of the nation's largest banks holding billions of dollars in questionable loans.

South Korea-based card company BC Card plans soon to begin expanding where its card are accepted overseas after inking a deal with Discover Financial Service to share credit card networks (see story) , according to a BC Card statement. The move will enable BC Card holders to use their domestic cards in other countries, including the United States, Japan and Singapore the statement notes.

Remote capture services have become an important offering for business customers, and banks are now adapting the technology for mobile phones in an effort to reach the mainstream.

Card-fraud costs the U.S. payments industry, including issuers, merchants and acquirers, an estimated $8.6 billion per year, according to a recent report from Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based consulting firm. However, fraud amounts to only 0.4% of the estimated $2.1 trillion in U.S. card volume annually, according to the report “Card Fraud in the United States: The Case for Encryption.” Aite interviewed more than 30 fraud-management professionals for the report.