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United States-based auction Web site owner eBay Inc. Monday postponed a mandate scheduled to begin today that would allow only PayPal, eBay's payment service, as an online-payment option on the company's Australian Web site (CardLine Global, 16/6). In a statement, eBay says it will continue to challenge the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's decision last week to delay the mandate while the commission investigates whether it is anticompetitive. EBay says it is "disappointed that the [commission's] current view delays the opportunity to provide consumers a more-secure way to shop on eBay.com.au with confidence." EBay intends to work with the commission and hopes to achieve an outcome "which has the safety and security of eBay's members as its paramount objective," the company says in a statement. EBay says it will delay the removal of other payment methods from the site until 15 July. The company declined further comment when contacted by CardLine Global.

Italian mobile-phone operator PosteMobile is using technology from France-based smart card vendor Gemalto to enable customers of BancoPosta to make payments using their mobile phones. BancoPosta is the retail-banking division of the Italian post office. The software enables BancoPosta customers to pay bills, send telegrams and faxes, and wire funds from accounts and prepaid cards, a PosteMobile statement says. The software also enables PosteMobile to design services, monitor their use and adopt them to the consumer's preferences over the air, a Gemalto spokesperson tells CardLine Global. The software enables customers to perform a large number of postal and banking services using only one SIM card, and it works on any handset, the spokesperson adds.

France-based smart card provider Gemalto Monday announced it has delivered 1 million electronic student-identification cards to Polish universities. To date, 100 universities and high schools issue the card, and Gemalto expects another 300 universities to do so WHEN?, a statement says. Besides student identification and building access, students also can use the cards as an electronic ticket for public transportation and to pay for parking spaces, Gemalto says. Gemalto is adding additional features, including one that enables students to pay for meals at the cafeteria or for photocopies at the library. Some universities issue cards with a digital signature to enable students to sign documents electronically, the statement says.

United Kingdom-based payments-network provider PayPoint plc Monday announced it has secured a new credit and debit card interchange agreement with UK-based Lloyds TSB Group plc to enable its affiliated retailers to pay a maximum of 1.4% on credit card payments and a flat fee of 14 pence per debit card payment. PayPoint's terminals accept payments for gas and electricity bills, mobile phone top-ups, and transportation tickets. PayPoint has more than 19,800 terminals in such UK and Irish shops as Spar, Costcutter, Sainsburys Local, One Stop and Londis.

Superior Bancorp of Birmingham, Ala., and Heartland Payment Systems Inc. have formed a joint marketing agreement offering their payments and banking services to businesses.

TD Banknorth Inc. is set to announce today that it is expanding its private-label card business into Canada.

Visa Europe will keep its cross-border interchange rates as is, even though MasterCard Europe, facing hefty fines from European regulators, said Thursday it would "temporarily repeal" its rates while continuing its appeal of the regulators' decision. "The announcement has no impact in Visa Europe's interchange," Visa said in a statement issued Friday. "We are in ongoing talks with the European Commission about how we (will) set our interchange in the future, and these continue." The commission is investigating Visa Europe's interchange and card practices. In December, it gave MasterCard six months to lower its rates or face paying daily fines amounting to 3.5% of global revenues. Regulators say the rates are anticompetitive. On Friday, Visa Europe repeated that it hoped to reach agreement with the commission. But one analyst questioned how much negotiating power Visa has in the wake of MasterCard's interchange decision. "The way the situation is evolving, it's clear that MasterCard and Visa have little leverage over the [commission]," Gwenn Bézard, senior analyst for the Aite Group, a United States-based consultancy, tells CardLine Global. "It's not good news for Visa." Meanwhile, European retailers welcomed MasterCard's decision to repeal its rates. "This signals a major victory in the battle against this hidden taxation of purchasing, which will bring significant benefits to consumers and retailers," retail trade association EuroCommerce said in a statement issued Friday.

Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund GmbH, a Frankfurt, Germany-based regional transit authority also known as RMV, has expanded its pioneering Near Field Communication mobile-ticketing service that enables commuters to buy higher-value travel passes by tapping their phones at bus, tram, subway and train stops. The authority had allowed customers to use their NFC phones to buy only single-use and other low-value tickets. As first reported by CardLine Global and its sister publication Cards&Payments early last month, the authority is enabling customers to buy monthly passes, which get downloaded to a secure chip in the contactless phones. The chip, embedded in the Nokia 6131 NFC handsets customers can buy for the service, is designed to keep the tickets safe from fraud. Storing tickets on the chip also enables roving inspectors to check the passes just by tapping their own NFC phones or devices against the riders' NFC phones. Previously, the low-value tickets for the "RMV2Go" mobile-ticketing service were stored in the handsets. If requested, riders would display the tickets on the handset screen for inspectors to view. Throughout Germany's gateless transit systems, riders do not need to tap or insert cards or paper tickets into readers to board trams, trains or buses. RMV and transit operators in neighboring Austria enable customers to buy tickets by tapping their NFC phones on tiny chip tags embedded in plastic disks or in stickers posted at transit stations and stops. This automatically opens an application that enables passengers to buy the tickets with a few clicks. The customers register their bank accounts or payment cards in advance to pay for the tickets. They also can tap the tags to connect automatically to the mobile Internet for schedules, departure times, possible delays and other information. The transit authority also confirms it soon will expand the number of tags to 11 more major cities in its service area in the German state of Hesse. By 2012 it plans to have its entire region covered with 15,000 tags. The authority and other players involved in the ticketing service say customers later will be able to download the high-value tickets and applications onto SIM cards and to use other NFC mobile phones.

Chinese consumers worry more about where they can pay bankcard bills than other factors when choosing credit cards, suggest survey data from Analysys International, a Beijing-based research company. The findings, based on 3,974 questionnaires sent in March to adult Internet users in China, show that 63% of respondents were concerned about convenient ways to pay card bills-whether at ATMs, bank branches or convenience stores. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they worried about card safety. About half of respondents said they considered the card brand when choosing a credit card, while nearly the same percentage considered annual fees. Almost 30% said they were concerned with reward points, while about 12.6% cared about gifts that come with cards.

United States-based auction Web site eBay Inc. says it is reviewing a directive from Australian competition authorities that delays company plans to mandate PayPal, eBay's payment service, as the only online-payment option on the company's Australian Web site, a spokesperson tells CardLine Global. EBay officials worked through Thursday night to "digest the information," the spokesperson says. "We will make further comment following the review process," the spokesperson says. On Thursday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said it was determining if eBay's mandate is anticompetitive (CardLine Global, 13 June). The mandate was scheduled to start Tuesday.

Citibank, which operates the nation's eighth-largest bank-owned ATM network, next week will begin replacing most of its ATMs in a bid to improve customer service.

Bank of America Corp. is raising its ATM surcharge in the Chicago market to $3 from $2

Mastercard Worldwide has some catching up to do in the debit card market to

Chevron Federal Credit Union and Technology Credit Union have joined the

Nautilus Hyosung America Inc.'s Mini-Bank 1500 ATM washeaded to the gallows last year–a victim of age discrimination–but complaints to management by Nautilus Hyosung's distributors and ATM ISOs won the machine a reprieve.

Issuers are making more money as debit card interchange rates increase, but

Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency on June 2 began offering direct

1st Source Bank is reissuing all of its debit cards following a computer breach May 12 at

More than 90% of Nautilus Hyosung America Inc.'s customers order ATMs through a Web ordering system, MinibankATM.com, Chan Park, company president and CEO, told ATM&Debit News at the company's Second Annual Users' conference. The Coppell, Texas, company launched Web site ordering in June 2007.