Cards

Financial authorities in India reportedly will require payment card companies such as MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. to provide regular financial reports of suspicious international transactions. The Indian government wants to reduce money laundering, according to press reports. Government and payments officials were unavailable for immediate comment. India's government recently amended the existing Prevention of Money Laundering Act, adding casinos, card issuers and funds-transfer companies to the law, which is designed to help prevent illegal foreign currency from circulating in the country. The original law, enacted about three years ago, previously applied only to banks.

Payforit, a mobile-ticketing service developed by several Europe-based mobile operators including Orange and Vadafone, is now a ticketing option for consumers who want to attend a concert at the London nightclub Scala on 15 Aug. United Kingdom-based mobile-content providers Dialogue Communications and AEI Mobile launched the service for the concert, according to a joint statement. Payforit enables consumers to use their mobile phones to buy goods and services that cost up to £10 (US$19.69 or 12.51 euros), the statement says. Users can make one-time payments or subscribe to the service. To purchase a ticket to the event, customers send a text message to receive a link to the club's mobile Web site. Customers then use the Payforit system to buy their tickets, which are sent by text message. Each ticket costs £10, according to the statement. "Mobile ticketing is a no-brainer for event-organizers, a good proportion of which are already using [text messaging] as the preferred marketing channel for events and functions," Del Dias, AEI Mobile managing director, says in a statement. Dialogue Communications did not respond to CardLine Global requests for comment.

United Kingdom-based department-store chain Debenhams plc has launched a MasterCard-branded prepaid chip card, a spokesperson for PrePay Technologies Ltd., the UK firm that is managing the effort, tells CardLine Global. The card functions essentially as a debit card, "but with the functionality of a MasterCard rather than a Maestro card," the spokesperson says. Consumers can add value to the cards at such locations as Debenhams stores and outlets of UK-based Post Office Ltd., and through funds transfers from bank accounts. Cardholders also can choose to have their wages directly deposited to the card's account, the spokesperson says. The spokesperson declines to say how many cards the department store might issue this year. In general, increasing the use and acceptance of prepaid cards in the UK will require issuers to persuade consumers to "abandon traditionally free banking and switch to prepaid," the spokesperson says. But there is reason for optimism. "The financial climate we operate in currently means the 'spend only what you have' message associated with prepaid is more appealing to more people, and we are seeing an upsurge in the number of people applying and using [our] prepaid cards," the spokesperson says. Increasing the popularity of prepaid cards in the UK also will involve improving retail distribution and offering services "above and beyond those offered with High Street banking," he says. Debenhams operates about 145 stores in the UK and Ireland.

Fourteen thousand federal-benefits recipients have chosen to receive their funds electronically in prepaid debit card accounts instead of by check since the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Service began promoting the option in 10 states earlier this year. The MasterCard-debit cards, known as Direct Express cards and issued by Dallas-based Comerica Bank, are available to any federal-benefits recipient who requests them, but "we are staggering the marketing in order to ensure a manageable process," says Judith Tillman, Financial Management Service commissioner. The bureau in April began marketing the cards to check recipients in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, each of which has a large number of residents who receive benefits checks. Last week, it began promoting the debit cards in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina, which have a relatively high risk of weather-related disasters, says Tillman. "We are doing the remaining 40 states and territories at eight to 12 states per month, depending on state size," she says. Some 4 million unbanked individuals receive Social Security and Supplemental Security benefits, and the bureau expects to save $42 million annually if they convert to using the prepaid card to secure their funds, says Tillman. It costs the bureau 98 cents to send a check versus 10 cents for a direct deposit, she says.

Latin American consumers will hold more than 324 million general-purpose prepaid cards by 2015, says NovoPayment Inc., a provider of prepaid cards to the region. The company released the results of its study at SourceMedia's third annual Underbanked Financial Service Forum in Miami today. Consumers will have about $215 billion loaded on the cards in 2015, Miami-based NovoPayment says in a statement. The forecast covers 15 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela. NovoPayment says it is basing its estimates on such factors as the size of labor force, poverty rates, wages and banking use. Anabel Perez, NovoPayment CEO, tells CardLine the company provides about 700,000 cards in Venezuela and Peru.

HONOLULU – Aloha Pacific FCU offered its member some relief from rising gas prices yesterday--a new Affinity Card which provides a five-cents per gallon discount to members at 80 Aloha Petroleum locations.

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Daniel R. Perlin, an equity analyst at Wachovia Corp., has raised his price target range for Visa Inc. shares Friday to $95 to $100 from his previous range of $85 to $90.

Citigroup Inc. and AT&T Inc. introduced a cobranded card for small-business owners last week with perquisites that include prescription drug discounts and access to "an around-the-clock personal business assistant."

Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH has moved into second place among the world's largest ATM manufacturers based on shipments in 2007, according to a private study by Retail Banking Research, a London-based strategic research and consulting firm.

The Fed's rate-cutting strategy to counteract the credit crisis has had consequences in Net banking. The alluring five-percent-plus rates that ING Direct, Citi, Capital One and others once offered for high-yield, online savings accounts (HYSAs) have dwindled to three percent territory.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin introduced companion legislation Thursday to a bill by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers that would regulate interchange fees.

The South Bend, Ind., banking company 1st Source Corp. is reissuing all its debit cards after hackers broke into its systems.

Higher gasoline and food prices are continuing to drive up consumer spending for necessities and reducing both spending on discretionary items and savings, according to Discover Financial Services.

Debit card use at the point of sale continues to grow, with cardholders who use both PINs and signatures completing more total debit transactions than those who use one method or the other, according to a First Data Corp. study released Thursday. Seventy-four percent of 2007 study respondents had used their debit card at the point of sale in the previous 30 days, an increase from 70% of respondents in 2006 and 62% in 2005, according to the study. Cardholders using both PINs and signatures performed more debit transactions during the previous 30 days than those using only PINs or signatures, according to the study. Cardholders using both methods completed 23.3 transactions during the previous month, while PIN-only users completed 12.2 and signature-only users completed 17, according to the study. Greenwood Village, Colo.-based First Data conducted phone interviews with roughly 3,500 adults in November and December 2006 and between October and December 2007. A First Data representative was unavailable to comment by CardLine deadline

Nautilus Hyosung America Inc., a company primarily known for making ATMs sold by independent sales organizations, has signed a breakthrough agreement to manufacture ATMs for Citibank, owner of one of the largest bank-owned ATM networks, ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication, has learned. The deal is considered a major, if not a landmark agreement, because large financial institutions traditionally have given most, if not all, of their business to Diebold Inc., NCR Corp. and Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH, the world's three-largest ATM manufacturers. Nautilus Hyosung's deal brings a fourth ATM player into the U.S. financial-institutions market. The deal has buoyed Nautilus Hyosung's confidence in entering a market supplying ATMs to financial institutions. As a result, the company has been interviewing candidates for vice president of financial institutions, a new position. Coppell, Texas-based Nautilus Hyosung today wrapped up its second-annual customer conference in Grapevine, Texas. Nautilus Hyosung executives refused to confirm or deny the agreement, but ATM&Debit News has learned from several sources attending the conference the company has delivered to during the past year its model 7600D, a drive-up ATM, and its model 7600T, a walk up ATM, to Citibank branches in Long Island, N.Y., and Los Angeles. Both machines have bulk-note acceptors and take deposits made with envelopes. Technicians, however, can upgrade the ATMs to accept envelope-free deposits. Citibank purchased the ATMs from Nautilus Hyosung because the bank is upgrading its entire ATM network, ATM&Debit News has learned. One of Nautilus Hyosung's customers who knows about the contract says the agreement involves a large number of ATMs, but he declined to say how many. Nautilus Hyosung is sharing the Citibank contract with NCR and Diebold.

Etelcharge.com, a Web site that enables consumers to buy gift cards by billing them to their home phones, announced yesterday it is in negotiations with gift card providers to increase its offerings. Rob Howe, Etelcharge.com chairman and CEO, says customers have been asking the company to add new kinds of gift cards to the ones it already offers. "We wanted to let people know, don't huff and puff about having one option. There's more coming," Howe says. Based in DeSoto, Texas, Etelcharge.com enables consumers to register their home phones on its Web site and buy gift cards in $20 increments up to $80, Howe says. The amount is then added to their home phone bills, he says. Consumers can use the gift cards to buy movies, music, and television shows for their computers from CinemaNow Inc., which is based in Marina Del Rey, Calif., Howe says. Etelcharge.com is negotiating with a number of gift card providers, including Stored Value Solutions of Louisville, Ky., which is a division of the Minneapolis-based Ceridian Corp., Howe says. For now, Etelcharge.com plans to focus on offering products that can be downloaded over the Internet, such as movies, music and software, he says. AT&T serves as Etelcharge.com's billing and collections provider, and its service are available only to AT&T customers in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, Howe says. The company plans to expand to other states and other phone companies, he says.

GreenNote Inc., a Redwood City, Calif., company founded last year, launched a Web site Wednesday that facilitates student loans funded by the borrowers' acquaintances.

Necessity was the mother of invention for a card aimed at new mothers in the United Kingdom.

Last week, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released a ruling that says merchants and nonbank owners of ATMs that reload prepaid cards are not in a regulatory category called money services businesses. The ruling means a bank that sponsors ATM and point-of-sale locations must comply with the Bank Secrecy Act for the transactions conducted at locations it sponsors.