Bank technology

Though Twitter Inc.'s service is designed to communicate with a vast, online audience, some financial companies are now using it to reach specific groups or even individuals, a sharp contrast to some early efforts that were more akin to e-mail spam.

VeriFone Holdings Inc. has developed a mobile payment card reader that works with Apple Inc.'s iPhone. The terminal maker said Tuesday that it expects to begin shipping its Payware Mobile device in January, at no charge to merchants that use its gateway payment service.

AOL bids farewell to password-generating tokens; electronics testing firm suing Capital One over unauthorized transfers; Facebookers should be wary of rubber duck friend requests; and more.

Fidelity National Information Services Inc. says it expects a return to growth in 2010 as bank spending on technology improves in the second half of the year.

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The Reserve Bank of India has ruled that all electronic and online purchases initiated in India must settle within two days.

Fundtech Ltd., a maker of banking software for corporate cash management and foreign exchange, announced a partnership Monday with VocaLink Ltd., the provider of the central infrastructure for the British Faster Payments service, to provide Swift connectivity to banks and their corporate clients in Europe.

Less than 50% of businesses with 20,000 or more payment transactions a year are compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a survey found.

Cardlytics Inc. is expanding its online banking marketing system to reach smaller merchants and larger banks.

Sapient Corp. plans to announce a marketing alliance today with Geezeo Inc. to improve the accuracy of its targeted ads.

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Square began last week to take the wraps off its new cell phone payment system. The company has been attracting attention in the blogosphere since May, when word first emerged that Jack Dorsey, better known for founding the popular Twitter Inc. microblogging service, was exploring a mobile phone payment technology.

Consumers are ready for mobile banking, and are starting to get impatient if their banks do not offer it, according to a pair of reports released this week.

Square Inc. has introduced a mobile payment device that lets users of Apple Inc.'s iPhone accept magnetic-stripe card payments.

NCR Corp.'s kiosk operation has notched two deployment victories this week.

Though Black Friday spending was up this year for all card types, PIN debit transactions grew faster than credit and signature debit combined, and gift card sales rose even faster, according to data published this week by First Data.

Anticipating a surge in "native electronic payments," The Clearing House Payments is pursuing a sweeping reorganization and finally shutting the door for good on its original business — processing paper checks.

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The mobile banking technology vendor ClairMail is planning to offer a remote capture service that its bank clients can offer to customers, using software from Mitek Systems Inc.

Intuit Inc. said Tuesday that it is selling its Real Estate Solutions business to focus on its online financial offerings.