Cards

Groupon is the latest of many companies to provide merchants with a card reader that clips to smartphones. But the daily-deals company is not simply selling a me-too device — it is planting the seeds of a bigger payments strategy.

ARLINGTON, Va. – A study released this morning by NAFCU shows that credit unions have increased their debit interchange revenues since last year’s enactment of the Durbin Amendment’s cap on interchange because of a rise in transaction volume, even though per-transaction fees have declined for many of them.

MasterCard re-Power prepaid cardholders can now reload or top-up their card accounts at any of more than 45,000 Western Union locations in the U.S., improving the appeal of the card to the underbanked worldwide.

Although hospitality-focused mobile payment application developer Tabbedout's technology has some resemblance to Square's mobile wallet, the vendor says it designed its system to be more compatible with established payment systems.

In the world of plastic cards, if a consumer loses one card, every card linked to that account must be canceled. That isn't the case with mobile wallets.

Square announced today that it has closed the Series D financing round that included Starbucks, among other investors.

Issuers are finding more and more sophisticated ways to entice consumers to swipe their cards over those of their rival banks.

Google says use of its mobile wallet app has more than doubled since it modified Google Wallet to more easily allow consumers to link their credit and debit cards.

Apple has — yet again — left payments out when it designed its newest iPhone, despite numerous indications that it explored using Near Field Communication technology to create a mobile wallet. Apple had many good reasons to choose the course it did.

The PCI Council is likely to benefit from the heightened awareness around ATM security, particularly MasterCard's push for EMV chip-card acceptance at ATMs, as it seeks feedback on its ATM Security guidelines.

The medical marijuana market once represented a new opportunity for merchant processors, but it dried up almost overnight when the major U.S. credit card networks more or less banned them from processing such sales — even in states where it is legal.

Isis, the mobile-payment venture backed by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, won't debut by the end of September as planned, extending delays for a service once expected to start by the end of June.

Each time the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council felt it was ready to establish a written-in-stone requirement for securing mobile payments, the technology — and the fraud committed against it — changed.

American card issuers and acquirers are "dragging their feet" on the transition to the EMV chip card standard, but some companies hope to speed the transition by making a clear business case for the technology.

Dynamics, a provider of payment cards that can dynamically rewrite their magnetic stripes or smart chips, unveiled another variant of its design this week.

Some 470 7-Eleven Canada stores now host Cardtronics' Allpoint Network surcharge-free ATMs. This deployment extends the Allpoint network into Canada.

The Near Field Communication chip used in many mobile wallets was conspicuous by its absence during Apple Inc.'s unveiling of the iPhone 5.

ShopKeep POS, a small independent sales organization, is capturing the attention of companies big and small. Earlier this month, it worked with PayPal to test a mobile-payment system, and today it announced plans with Dwolla and SCVNGR's LevelUp.

BitPay, an Orlando-based company that helps online merchants accept the digital currency, says more than 1,000 merchants have signed up for its service in the past year.

Online Resources Corp. opened an office in the metro Atlanta area this year to attract the sort of payments-industry talent it says is rarer in Chantilly, Va., where it is based.