Cards

As EMV chip-and-PIN payment card technology spreads to new markets, an Argentina technology company sees opportunity in developing a biometric fingerprint-scanner to replace personal identification numbers for card authentication.

The Reserve Bank of India has released a final roadmap and a fixed timeline for banks to ensure the systems they use to process card transactions are secure.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys who are accusing a few dozen of the nation’s largest banks of ripping off consumers by manipulating overdraft fees have put on an impressive display of legal firepower in court, positioning themselves to potentially score massive settlements or verdicts.

Bank of America Corp. should expect to lose some consumers in the Lone Star state over its new debit card fee if a recent survey from a Dallas-based regional-payments association is any indication of growing angst with financial institutions.

In a move that MasterCard Worldwide says is helping to pave the way for contactless mobile payments in the U.S., the card company on Oct. 7 announced that 7,000 Subway restaurants will accept PayPass by the end of the first quarter of 2012. Subway follows McDonald’s Corp., which began taking PayPass in 2004 at its U.S. locations.

In an effort to thwart fraud attempts at the earliest stage of the online ticket-purchasing process, Turkish Airlines Inc. has opted to link its website to CyberSource Corp.’s fraud-monitoring services.

Bank of America Corp., whose website has been down sporadically since Sept. 30, says the problem stemmed from technical hiccups, not a hack attack.

A private-sector bank in India says it plans to deploy at least 50 biometric ATMs before March 31 next year to widen banking access to its customers, especially those who may not be able to read.

Bank Freedom, a wholly owned subsidiary of PrepaYd Inc., is attributing a dramatic increase in deposits into its prepaid card accounts during the third quarter to a substantial boost in card orders during the three-month period.

Operators of cashless vending machines and kiosks are scrambling to find relief from new debit-interchange rates, some of which are significantly higher than what they typically paid previously and may wipe out much of their profits, observers say.

Hughes Communications India Ltd.’s Sept. 26 announcement that it had received approximately 5,000 orders since January to set up satellite terminals suggests deployment of so-called “brown-label” ATMs is becoming a growing trend in India.

WASHINGTON–President Obama sharply criticized the financial sector Oct. 5 in response to questions about the Occupy Wall Street movement, the small number of prosecutions related to the financial crisis, and his recent comments about Bank of America's plan to impose a fee on debit-card users.

First Tennessee Bank is getting ready to rake in the pennies. Lots of them, it hopes.

Though it established a two-tier rate structure to accommodate issuers exempt from new caps on debit card interchange established by the Federal Reserve Board, Visa Inc. made only minor changes to the rates acquirers use to determine how much they pay card issuers with less than $10 billion in assets.

Mocapay Inc. has signed yogurt store Yumilicious to its mobile loyalty program in a move some observers say illustrates the future for loyalty and prepaid gift cards.

Steve Jobs spent his career more focused on personal computing than on personal banking, but under him Apple Computer still left a lasting mark on the world of finance.

New regulations that are sweeping across the banking industry, particularly the Durbin amendment to the Dodd/Frank Act, have financial institutions and other card issuers scrambling to find alternative ways to boost fee income as traditional revenue streams tighten over time.

The Secure Remote Payment Council reached a watershed moment of sorts last month when it cosponsored a one-day symposium with the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago.

Hypercom USA has changed its name to Equinox Payments LLC in a move that one analyst says should take no one by surprise.

Now that new Federal Reserve Board rules essentially have cut in half the interchange portion of the merchant acquirer expense for many debit card transactions, Global Payments Inc. plans to share “a significant amount of this” with its merchant clients, the company’s top executive told analyst during an Oct. 4 conference call to discuss fiscal first quarter earnings.