Cards

Billing outsourcer BillTrust has developed new invoice technology that uses streamlined processing and dispute resolution to boost businesses payments automation, a segment that has traditionally lagged consumer payments in reducing paper processing.

Several Canadian banks have taken on the challenge of managing and protecting their customers' usernames and passwords across banking and government sites. U.S. banks are invited to join a similar pilot starting in the U.S.

CO-OP Financial Services is upgrading its Sprig digital wallet to allow broader person-to-person payments, and is also adding mobile credit and debit card control and alert features.

Electronic payments provider ACI Worldwide named two new executives to its leadership team and is also establishing a new South America headquarters in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Joe Proto, a payments executive and founder of several technology companies, is the new board chairman at prepaid card marketer The SpendSmart Co.

If retail stores seemed a little less crowded over the holiday weekend, tablets or smartphones are likely to blame, as the volume of e-commerce payments made via mobile devices surged during what some are now calling the "Cyber Five" shopping days — from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain's biggest taxpayer-owned lender, apologized for a technical fault that left customers unable to access accounts and offered to compensate those who have lost money.

Online remittance provider Xoom has followed up the quick start to its mobile payment services with local partnerships to allow the company's money transfer service to work across multiple channels.

The PayPal Digital Gifts website is a new e-commerce hub that sells virtual gift cards that can only be purchased using the eBay subsidiary's digital wallet.

NCR has been working to become a "hardware-enabled, software-driven business" for eight years. With its purchase of online and mobile banking vendor Digital Insight and transaction switching and fraud detection software company Alaric Systems, it's taken a big step forward.

NCR Corp. has agreed to purchase Menlo, Calif.-based Digital Insight Corp. for $1.65 billion. Separately, NCR also completed a purchase of Alaric Systems in London for $84 million.

Because of the changes that mobile will bring to the point of sale, the payments industry can expect to see acquisitions, consolidations and investments in that market over the next six to 12 months.

While nearly two thirds, or 61%, of U.S. online consumers have heard of a digital wallet, only 11% actually use one, an indicator that wallet providers still face challenges reaching consumers, according to Forrester Research.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. started offering a cloud computing service known as Ju Baopen for banks and securities firms, as China's largest e-commerce company ventures into financial-related services.

As the prepaid card market has matured, it has become a "business not for the faint of heart or haphazard investor" because of regulatory scrutiny and competition's effect on pricing, according to Aite Group.

A Baby Boomer who has banked with the same small financial institution for more than 37 years hardly fits the mobile profile. But look below the surface and this mom is actually a prime candidate.

MasterCard Inc. and PayPal have positioned themselves as companies with “the best current opportunities in the payment space,” according to Morningstar Financial Services.

Ally Bank expanded its use of Fiserv's Popmoney person-to-person payments service, allowing consumers to send and receive funds from the bank's mobile banking app.

If consumers were worried about a government shutdown or stalled debt ceiling talks affecting the economy, they didn’t show it by holding off on credit card spending in October, a First Data Corp. report indicates.

The number of credit cards issued by banks and retailers hit five-year highs between January and August, according to the latest Equifax National Consumer Credit Trends Report.