Banking

The popular mobile-phone game Angry Birds is once again helping a new payments product take flight, with the introduction of a Visa prepaid card with designs based on the game's theme.

Issuers and merchants have heard the card brands’ pitch that without EMV smart card adoption in the U.S., fraudsters will flock to this country because it will become a weak link in the data security chain.

MANCHESTER, N.H. – St. Mary’s Bank won a contract to install two ATMs in Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, an hour north of Boston.

Regulators closed the $225 million-asset Heritage Bank of Florida in Lutz, and the $924 million-asset Citizens First National Bank in Princeton, Ill. The two failures were estimated to cost the FDIC a combined $111 million.

The storm left many without electricity, phones and use of the roads. But in many of the affected areas, consumers and merchants continued to conduct business and found a way to handle payments.

Camco Financial (CAFI) in Cambridge, Ohio, has processed the rights subscriptions for roughly $9.4 million of its common stock.

International Bancshares in Laredo, Texas, has redeemed another chunk of the money it received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The California Department of Financial Institutions has lifted a memorandum of understanding against Hanmi Bank after the Los Angeles institution's condition improved.

An increase in mortgage refinancing helped Ally Financial swing to a profit in the third quarter.

Commerce Bancshares (CBSH) in Kansas City, Mo., will issue a special dividend ahead of a potential increase in dividend tax rates.

MasterCard (MA) and American Express (AXP) are the latest financial companies to make charitable donations in the wake of the storm that has devastated the tri-state area.

A changing asset mix boosted third-quarter results at Sterling Bancorp (STL) in New York. The $2.5 billion-asset company's rose 23% from a year earlier, to $5.3 million.

The Open Data Center Alliance, an independent IT consortium, and TM Forum, a global, non-profit industry association announced Thursday their joint effort of publishing a suite of documents outlining requirements for Compute Infrastructure as a Service (ClaaS).

Under the OCC, a complex foreclosure review process is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to administrators and advertisements. Critics charge that banks and homeowners would be far better served by a simpler program.

With financial institutions keeping interest rates lower and fees higher on new commercial hybrid accounts, institutions are, in fact, discouraging commercial clients from switching to their new products.

Fears about spikes in tax rates could lead a number of capital-heavy bank to consider one-time plans to return capital to shareholders.

The industry has asked the CFPB to delay the effective date for a rule expanding disclosures for remittance transfers.

Hurricane Sandy has been over for three days now but the aftermath is hitting many mortgage bankers and brokers hard in the greater New York metropolitan area which includes New Jersey and Connecticut.

Fortumo announced Wednesday that its mobile payments offering supports Windows 8, Microsoft's new operating system for desktop, laptop and tablet.

Both companies are expressing early optimism in their ability to compete with American Express' Bluebird card, but long-term uncertainty looms.