Bank technology

Metavante Technologies will be dropped from the S&P MidCap 400 index after the close of trading Thursday, when its acquisition by Fidelity National Information Services is expected to be completed.

Mobile phone payments have just been given an espresso shot, with the endorsement of Starbucks Corp., the first company to use a bar-code payments system from mFoundry Inc.

Mobile phone payments have just been given an espresso shot, with the endorsement of Starbucks, the first company to use a bar-code payments system from mFoundry.

Hungary's antitrust regulator has fined the local units of Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., as well as OTP Bank Nyrt. and six other lenders there, saying they colluded on fees charged to credit card customers.

Wells Fargo introduced a mobile phone customer-to-customer payment service Thursday that enables one Wells Fargo customer to transfer money to another.

Banks make more money when consumers know where their money is going. Quite a lot of money, actually, according to Intuit, which dominates the market personal financial management software.

To the Editor:
Intuit's plans with Mint Software may not be as foggy as they appear to be at present ["Intuit to Pay a Mint for Unclear Gain," Sept. 16].

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Commuters in France are testing a system that enables them to refill their transit cards at home using payment card readers that they attach to their computers.

BPC Banking Technologies' "double PIN" software enables cardholders to create a second PIN; they can use the new one for standard transactions, and the original one can be used in case of robbery.

A bankruptcy court last week approved a bidding process for the assets of the payment processor Cynergy Data LLC.

Five credit unions have agreed to use core processing software from Fiserv Inc. The Brookfield, Wis., banking technology vendor said Wednesday that the new customers are also planning to use additional products, including online banking, card services, loan origination and check imaging.

With weak growth projected for its main business of archiving check images, Viewpointe LLC is expanding into new markets.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its Virtual Remit service Tuesday, targeting lockbox customers that also receive payments at other locations, such as their corporate headquarters.

Phishers figure out how to intercept communications between consumers and bank Web sites; Apple's iPhone anitphishing feature hard to follow; and more.

First Data Corp. is developing a security format that could assuage merchants' concerns about encrypting card data at the point of sale.

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Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is offering its restaurant clients a payment analysis application developed by Restaurant Magic Software.

Consumers in the United Kingdom wrote 711 million checks in 2008, down 47.3% from 2003, according to a report released last week by Cheque and Credit Clearing Co., a British trade group that manages the country's check-clearing system.