Cards

For the first time in its 11-year history, ING Direct is sending customers checkbooks. But the checks are useless until they pass a gauntlet of security measures the online bank designed.

Bank executives who oversee ATMs view the channel as a “differentiator” in terms of enhancing the customer experience and are exploring ways to introduce additional advanced features such as personalization and targeted marketing and messaging, a new report suggests.

ACI Worldwide Inc. is rolling out an upgraded version of its payments server that will boost security systems and marketing processes for retail clients, including the ability to offer consumers immediate rewards at the point of sale, a company executive says.

To help simplify the payment of income taxes for its customers, HDFC Bank Ltd. has launched a tax-payment service on its ATM network, the India-based bank announced August 8.

One year following the implementation of Reg E – opt-in for debit card and ATM overdrafts – and 77% of checking account users have given consent.

The latest forecast of mobile payment growth, from U.K. research company Visiongain, calls for $150 billion in mobile-phone-generated payments to take place globally by the end of this year. This is significantly larger than the estimate Gartner came out with last month, which predicted that worldwide mobile payment volume would total $86.1 billion in 2011.

Responding to what it says is strong demand from corporate customers whose employees travel internationally, Citigroup Inc. on Aug. 11 announced the capability to equip domestic commercial cards with EMV chip-and PIN technology for use in markets outside the U.S. where chip-enabled cards prevail.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council intends to clear up confusion regarding tokenization, a process designed to protect payment card security.

An Australian credit union in Illawarra is trying to recover after several hundred members were victimized by a card-skimming operation.

Though Simple Finance Technology Corp.’s BankSimple has yet to launch, it is becoming an early adopter with the technology it uses to open accounts and vet new customers.

MasterCard has promoted Debra Janssen has been promoted to managing director of MasterCard's Access Prepaid Worldwide subsidiary.

The European Commission has decided to examine airlines’ increasing use of card surcharges they apply to credit and debit card purchases initiated online.

An owner of a new restaurant likely would not hesitate to buy a $300 fire extinguisher to comply with local fire codes, but he might put off spending about half that much to ensure compliance with standards designed to protect customers’ credit card data, a new report suggests.

An owner of a new restaurant likely would not hesitate to buy a $300 fire extinguisher to comply with local fire codes, but he might put off spending about half that much to ensure compliance with standards designed to protect customers’ credit card data, a new report suggests.

Visa Inc.’s new U.S. EMV initiative will have far-reaching consequences for merchants and card issuers, but the other card networks may not follow it exactly in drawing their roadmaps for migrating to advanced chip card technologies, certain observers say.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the demise of the decoupled-debit card may have been greatly exaggerated.

Most large U.S. merchants easily will comply with Visa Inc.’s first level of incentives to make payment terminals ready to accept contact and contactless EMV cards next year as part of the card brand’s U.S. push toward chip card technology, but it may take smaller merchants a year or two to get there, payment industry experts suggest.

When newly acquired card customers from HSBC’s U.S. card program and ING’s online bank are folded into Capital One Financial Corp.’s existing base, they will have a rapidly expanding array of digital transaction and payments channels from which to choose.

Consumers accustomed to receiving coupons for product samples or trial sizes of laundry detergent or dish soap in the mail soon instead may receive private-label prepaid cards they could use at a retailer to obtain full-size versions.

If data-security standards compliance in the United States mirrors what has occurred in Europe, the onset of EMV chip-and-PIN technology in the U.S. will not mean major retailers will skip validating their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard each year, the head of the PCI Security Standards Council contends.