Cards

For U.S. banks, the days of playing defense with respect to the billions of dollars they collect when consumers swipe their debit cards may finally be over.

Digital payments company ACI Worldwide has begun offering bill pay services on ATMs and kiosks sold by LD Systems.

The ATM is one of the oldest self-service technologies in banking, and mobile is one of the newest. But surprisingly, this odd couple of technologies has a lot of synergy.

Monitise, a London-based payments technology company, has partnered with MoneyPass Network to provide services to ATM users in the U.S.

Citigroup Inc. will exit some businesses within its institutional clients group, including hedge-fund administration and prepaid cards.

Banks in Europe are selling digital gift cards alongside traditional bank accounts, allowing online consumers to buy credit for Facebook, Nintendo, Spotify and other content providers.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced automated teller machines by 12% last quarter as the largest U.S. bank exited from some retail locations.

The holding company for 15 banks, which is approaching $20 billion in assets, has been testing cardless ATM transactions since the summer of 2013. Now, it is expanding the capability to dozens of machines — marking it the first institution in the U.S. to take the technology, powered by the vendor FIS, into production.

The uses for prepaid cards are expanding, creating fresh opportunities for financial institutions that may have earlier dismissed the product as a tool for the unbanked, said Michael Fiore, who becomes MasterCard's group executive of global prepaid solutions on Jan. 15.

UniRush is feeding its appetite for the payroll card business by acquiring rapid! PayCard from WEX.

French payment companies are stepping up the use technology that can spot certain types of card fraud that are not prevented by EMV-chip security.

The extended leave of Starbucks' chief operating officer, Troy Alstead, could indicate that last year's creation of the COO post has succeeded in furthering the coffee chain's mobile payments initiatives.

A Swiss bank has partnered with acquirer SIX Payment Services to issue a debit card that enables both contactless and regular transactions.

ICICI Bank has launched what it calls India's first contactless debit and credit cards using Near Field Communication technology.

Starbucks Corp. sold about 16% more gift cards in the U.S. during the 2014 holiday season as shoppers increasingly defaulted to the fail-safe option of treating their loved ones to lattes and Frappuccinos.

Prepaid card issuer Green Dot has promoted Kuan Archer to become its chief operating officer.

Diebold has introduced antimicrobial touchscreens to its automated teller machines.

Brazil's central bank has approved a joint venture between Banco do Brasil SA, the nation's largest bank by assets, and card payment processor Cielo SA, but the bank cannot claim accounting gains in its projected profits.

The payments industry is quickly adapting to new technology, new regulations and new consumer demands. Here are 15 of the industry's major transformations already in progress.

Customers give slightly higher marks to retail banks for their overall customer service than they do to credit card issuers, even if the credit card service is a division of the same bank, according to a recent survey of credit and debit cardholders.