Cards

Many companies are idling while the U.S. considers its options for handling the migration to chip cards from magnetic-stripe cards. Even a company based in the UK finds itself stuck.

Visa's quarterly earnings increased by 26% from a year earlier, and its financial outlook for 2013 has also brightened, the company said Feb. 6.

A new partnership between Western Union Co. and Carrefour Group will provide money transfer and bill pay services at the big-box retailer's stores in Argentina, the companies announced Wednesday. In addition, Western Union extended its existing relationship to provide money transfer services at Walmart Canada locations.

The EMV smartcard standard is so commonly combined with a PIN code that most consumers know it simply as "chip-and-PIN." But Visa and MasterCard don't agree on whether PIN use should be a priority when the U.S. adopts the EMV standard.

NCR Corp. announced Feb. 6 that it has closed its purchase of Retalix Ltd., a retail software provider.

A café chain in northern New England is telling its customers that hackers may have breached the company’s payments system. The Works Bakery Café is a small target but its experience is indicative of a bigger trend in data security.

The Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) standards don't appear to have a lot in common, but there is one alarming similarity — the tortoise-like pace of migration which threatens deadlines for both.

While Facebook is moving to phase out its Facebook Credits, Amazon.com Inc. announced the launch of Amazon Coins, a very similar virtual currency for spending on its Kindle Fire tablet.

What did mobile wallets look like before Apple and its peers invented the consumer smartphone market and launched App Stores to distribute systems like Passbook, Isis and Google Wallet?

Payments associations and organizations applauded Visa Inc.'s Feb. 4 move to address one of the most nagging EMV smart-card migration issues in the U.S., but they are not ready to say all their problems have been solved.

Amazon.com Inc. today announced plans for Amazon Coins, a virtual currency for its Kindle Fire tablet.

Facebook is further dipping its toe into physical payments and launching a new, branded gift card for its users. The closed-loop card is redeemable at several national retailers.

VeriFone Systems Inc. said Chief Executive Officer Douglas Bergeron’s trading was the subject of inquiries by the U.S. Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission, which ended their probes without action.

To give banks a competitive edge over companies like PayPal, Apple and Google Wallet, two-year-old Sionic Mobile released its mobile commerce platform to financial institutions today.

MasterCard Inc. is working with The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion to launch a research initiative, Mapping the Invisible Market, with an interactive website as part of the Financial Inclusion 2020 initiative.

VeriFone announced Monday the appointment of a new chief financial officer. Marc E. Rothman, a former chief financial officer at Motorola, is becoming an executive vice president at VeriFone and its CFO. He will succeed Robert Dykes, 63, who will retire from his post at the end of the month.

Visa Inc. contravened Australia's consumer protection laws by preventing buyers from using a currency of their choice when shopping, the country's competition regulator said.

Visa Inc. says its EMV chip technology will be available to create a common code for debit transactions to allow merchants to choose networks as mandated by federal law — a move that could address a key obstacle in the U.S.

The prepaid card provider Plastyc Inc. has added a mobile remote deposit capture feature that provides instant access to funds.

As Loylogic traverses the world looking for more than just a single partner for its rewards redemption app, it's attempting to sweeten the user experience by reducing the amount of navigation needed at the point of sale.