Cards

The convergence of the major card brands within various evolving Near Field Communication-based mobile payment schemes could inspire more merchants to prepare for contactless-payment acceptance. But the path to individual banks’ participation remains hazy, observers say.

Diebold Inc. has attacked the reliability of NCR Corp.’s new single-slot, mixed-media ATM technology that can accept intermingled cash and checks. But early returns suggest NCR’s machines work well enough to satisfy Wells Fargo & Co. and BMO.

West Bengal is planning to distribute a new credit card designed to provide credit to the Indian state’s small and midsize enterprises.

Legislation in California that would restrict fees associated with prepaid payroll debit cards likely would offer little economic incentive to providers and issuers to support such products, notes one analyst.

Banks processing their own debit cards should modify their networks to accept new payment technologies, but it may be too soon to determine whether vendors pushing software to make that process easier will trigger a quick change, an industry analyst says.

Standard Chartered Bank India Pvt. Ltd. is adopting a more aggressive stancetoward the Indian credit card market thanks to positive changes in the market, a top bank official said on Sep. 19.

Woori Finance Holdings Co. Ltd. plans to spin off its credit card business into a new company to diversify and bolster its nonbanking services, the South Korea-based issuer announced Sept. 18.

Shell Federal Credit Union says it has signed a full-service, single-sourced comprehensive electronic-processing contract with Vantiv.

Payments processor and technology provider Jack Henry & Associates Inc. has expanded the processing relationship between its iPay Technologies division and MasterCard Worldwide’s RPPS electronic bill-payment network, the companies announced Sept. 20.

Fidelity National Information Services on Sept. 19 confirmed it was the cause of the Sept. 16 shutdown of payments and ATM access at Co-op Financial Services and numerous bank systems across the country (see story).

Spending with Visa-branded credit cards in China last year rose 23.7%, to US$4.7 billion from US$3.8 billion in 2009, thanks to a growing number of international travelers visiting the country, Visa Inc.’s China Tourism Outlook report said.

As more prepaid debit card marketers target the underbanked, it is important for those programs to provide a link to mobile phone services so customers can monitor their balances, among other services, Bart Narter, an analyst at Celent, tells PaymentsSource.

Google Inc. has reached agreements with Visa Inc., American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services with the goal of eventually enabling other financial institutions to add their Near Field Communication-enabled payment card products to Google Wallet, the company announced Sept. 19.

Dynamics Inc. has created a chip card that can re-write itself and hold two different accounts, the company announced Sept. 19.

Mocapay Inc. is testing a mobile loyalty and prepaid gift card platform that it intends to make widely available to small merchants in the first quarter of next year, the company’s president tells PaymentsSource.

A five-year terminal contract that will enable Avis Europe PLC Inc. to process and manage transactions from numerous European countries will help position French terminal maker Ingenico SA to corner the European car-rental market, company executives and an industry analyst say.

Members at BECU, formerly Boeing Employees Credit Union, and hundreds of credit unions had their cards rejected at Co-op Financial ATMs on Sept. 16 because of a disruption in the system at processor Fidelity National Information Systems.

With privacy concerns about its mobile phone location-based credit card fraud-detection technology in Europe resolved, ValidSoft Ltd. has set its sights on entering the U.S. market within the next few months, the company CEO says.

More than 3,000 merchants have signed up to use an alternative mobile phone-based loyalty scheme called Paycloud from SparkBase Inc. that may eventually include a mobile-payment element, the company says.

Citigroup Inc. is raising the fees it charges customers for its basic checking accounts and it will no longer give them rewards for using its debit cards, in the wake of new regulations capping debit interchange fees, the company announced Sept. 16.