Cards

Prepaid card fees are often considered unreasonably high, but that is rarely the case — even the ill-fated Kardashian Kard, which was so vilified for its fees that it shut down within a month of its launch, wasn't out of line in its pricing.

Online ticket payment provider Picatic has the business model of a museum—its customers are expected to pay, but the amount is at least partly up to the patron.

Electronic payments company Ixaris, which has about 20 corporate clients using its Ixaris Payments Server, will target corporate prepaid card-issuing financial institutions with the same technology.

Stockholm-based iZettle is bringing its mobile card reader into Mexico.

NetSpend stockholders voted to approve the prepaid card marketer's acquisition by Total System Services, clearing the way for the payments processor to complete the deal in mid-2013.

In the U.S., the only country converting to the EMV chip-card format with more than one debit network and a federal mandate that covers debit routing, the lingering uncertainty about how to code EMV payments “is pushing away many issuers and forcing them to wait” before offering cards, says Thomas Grouard Lillelund, senior manager of EMV and new technologies for CPI Card Group.

Wendy's International Inc. is beefing up the payment functions of its My Wendy's mobile app, which furthers the company's strategy and plays on other quick service retailer's success with mobile payments.

Amazon.com Inc. added a new payments system called the Amazon Birthday Gift, which allows users to send Amazon.com gift cards with birthday messages to friends on Facebook and allow other friends to contribute more to the card's balance.

Starbucks now receives over 10% of its U.S. transactions as mobile payments, and over 30% of its transactions are made with the mobile or plastic version of its Starbucks Card accounts.

Punchey's tossing its hat into the mobile payments ring with a mix of mobile card acceptance, social network-driven marketing and other services designed for merchants that handle larger payments.

Tristan O'Tierney, one of Square's team of co-founders is leaving the mobile payments company after four years.

Square has completed a major overhaul of the cloud-based Square Wallet, which allows consumers to make purchases from a linked payment card by "checking in" at a Square merchant. Here are some of the key differences in the new Wallet app.

Plastyc Inc. now does business as Banking Up, a name that signifies the direction in which it is taking its prepaid offerings, iBankUP and the UPside Visa card.

Prepaid card program manager Praxell is partnering with card marketer and producer Arroweye Solutions and identity provider ABnote to produce a card that combines municipal identification and payments.

Visa Inc. sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in a bid to stop the world's largest retailer from filing a lawsuit to press price-fixing claims over merchant swipe fees.

NEW YORK – Seeking to salvage its landmark antitrust settlement, Visa filed suit yesterday in federal court here seeking a declaratory judgment that would prevent Walmart from bringing price-fixing claims over merchant credit card fees.

Banks providing cash back on transactions as an incentive for credit card use have a better chance of seeing their account become the "top of wallet" card, a new Auriemma Consulting Group report says.

ShopKeep POS is adding credit card acceptance through PayPal at a 2.7% per-transaction fee, which it says is competitive with other processing options.

Square Inc. has redesigned its mobile payment app, displaying its merchants as thumbnail images instead of as a list and placing a greater emphasis on discounts and loyalty.

Merchants, acquirers and issuers are preparing to handle EMV-chip debit cards that carry three application identifier codes — from Visa, MasterCard and Discover — as an earlier push to use one common code remains unresolved.