Cards

Better ATM Services plans to distribute its ATM-issued prepaid Visa cards through Advanced Network Inc.'s customers.

Walgreen Co. plans to expand the payments features of its combined loyalty and prepaid MasterCard, Balance Financial, with the goal of making it the preferred financial product of its underbanked customers.

Credit unions across the nation are moving up their EMV conversion timelines, considering more class action lawsuits against Target Corp. and calling on Congress to create rules requiring greater payment data security from retailers.

Linking loyalty to payment cards, especially through cobranded products, is a relatively new practice that retailers say helps them target offers to their best customers.

SmartMetric Inc. is launching a Bitcoin card protected with biometric fingerprint authentication. The card can be used as offline storage for bitcoins, but in the future it might also be used for payment.

The Washington, D.C. Metro transportation system says it will test new electronic fare equipment after completing a deal with Accenture to replace older systems.

Independent ATM operators will soon have to upgrade, replace or abandon their newly obsolete machines.

JPMorgan Chase is making birthday wishes a high-tech art form for its customers.

JPMorgan Chase is seeking a buyer for its corporate payroll, tax refund and health-savings prepaid card business.

Western Union Co. and Atlanta-based SunTrust Bank have launched a global money transfer and bill payment service that will also allow customers to send money to load prepaid cards and pay bills at more than 1,500 bank agent location in the southeastern U.S.

Mercury Payment Systems LLC plans to upgrade its closed-loop gift card system so that any small to mid-size merchant can offer gift, loyalty and reloadable prepaid options to customers in one card.

AJB Software Design Inc. has helped J. Crew, an American specialty retailer, integrate EMV-chip card acceptance into its stores in Canada. And with the EMV migration deadline approaching in the U.S., the middleware provider expects more business.

Despite regulatory and legal uncertainties that could affect the U.S. EMV chip-card migration, MasterCard Inc. is telling its acquiring banks and merchants that it intends to stick to its October 2015 deadline.

Point of sale hardware and software provider Image Retail Solutions and payment service provider Anderson Zaks have partnered to sell outsourced card payment processing.

Financial services provider UniRush, the company behind the prepaid Visa RushCard, has appointed Rick Savard chairman and CEO.

A pair of companies has launched services on Twitter that allow users to transact in Bitcoin across the microblogging site. And while Twitter has been selective of what companies facilitate payments in the past, the social networking giant hasn't yet touched these Bitcoin services.

Acquirers say they're signing up new merchants and retaining established customers with the help of software that bundles payment services.

The new year got off to a mixed start for virtual currency, with regulators in Asia clamping down on Bitcoin and gaming company Zynga embracing the emerging payments option.

The Target Corp. data breach just before the holiday shopping season triggered another round of rhetoric on the merits and shortcomings of chip-based cards. But the breach's direct effect on merchant EMV plans is largely up in the air.

Consumers demand far more flexibility from their card reward programs — and some banks are getting creative about delivering it.