Cards

PEX Card now offers PEX Mobile, the corporate prepaid card company’s suite of iOS and Android applications, to allow card administrators access to their programs through a smartphone.

As tax season begins, the prepaid card provider Plastyc Inc. will be able to see whether its technology can help H&R Block transform its prepaid card from a disposable, seasonal product into one they use repeatedly.

Fiserv, the third-largest provider of financial services technology on the FinTech 100 ranking, Monday announced it has acquired Open Solutions, a smaller provider of core banking software. The purchase price was $55 million, and Fiserv assumed approximately $960 million of debt.

With the launch of the MasterCard Dual Value Health Card, Medagate enables its cardholders to redeem targeted offers and incentives at the point of sale.

VeriFone Systems announced Jan. 14 a suite of payment products, including an iPad mini version of its Payware Mobile card reader, a similar sleeve for the iPhone 5 and VeriFone HQ, a cloud-based system that allows retailers to monitor their terminals and manage their brands.

Cadence Bank NA plans to issue new Discover debit cards to all of the bank’s debit cardholders during the second quarter of 2013, Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover Financial Services announced Jan. 14.

A German banking committee has approved an Ingenico SA payment terminal as the first to accept contactless payments in the country under a new contactless pay system called giorgo.

Some prominent mobile wallets today rely on NFC as the primary method of making payments. These include the mobile carriers’ Isis venture and Google’s mobile wallet. Others, such as PayPal, consider NFC optional. The mega-retailers’ Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) venture, which has yet to release a product, promises a software-based alternative to NFC, storing card data in the cloud and using bar codes to conduct transactions.

Online payments gateway provider Payelp Global will provide its merchants with a payment option that will help customers without credit cards, or those in markets that don't accept credit cards, shop online with a virtual prepaid card.

Retailers are looking to payments technologies to empower them to provide a more personalized shopping experience, one that improves consumer engagement at the point of sale and helps build customer loyalty, according to experts who spoke Sunday at the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York.

There's no turning back — prepaid cards have left a permanent mark on banks, card networks, alternative payment providers and more. Some might consider that mark to be a scarlet letter, but many now wear it as a badge of honor.

Ingenico SA agreed to offer Shift4 Corp.'s gateway offering as part of the French terminal maker's point-to-point encryption portfolio.

Bancsource Inc. is handling first-line and second-line maintenance of International Bank of Commerce's 313 Diebold ATMs in Texas and Oklahoma.

Groupon's push into the payments business continues with an update that brings its mobile card reader to Android phone users.

The card giant also announced a series of unexpected expenses that will crimp earnings, including a $342 million charge relating to rewards points.

Surcharge-free ATM networks are expanding in Canada. The push is being led by Canadian credit unions as well as the efforts of U.S.-based Cardtronics.

American Express announced plans for 5,400 layoffs after the stock market closed Thursday, citing technological changes to existing business lines.

NCR Corp. is launching a mobile point of sale consulting service.

The checklist for routine maintenance on the three automated teller machines owned by First Community Bank and Trust of Beecher, Ill., contains one head-scratching item: the maintenance worker is regularly required to take a photo of the machine to keep on file at the $147 million-asset bank as a defense in potential lawsuits. Now Greg Ohlendorf, the bank's chief executive officer, can cross that mundane task off the list.

Cezar Butu of Romania, who pleaded guilty to taking part in hacking terminals at hundreds of U.S. Subway sandwich shops from 2009 to 2011, was sentenced this week to 21 months in prison.