Cards

With a scant seven months left to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act rules governing everything from machine heights to the wording of Braille messages, many banks and ATM deployers have yet to take action, an analyst says.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has set Aug. 29 as its deadline for gathering suggestions from participating organizations for security compliance topics that need further study.

Square Inc.’s mobile card reader is under fire again for its security.

Redwood Credit Union, a $1.9 billion credit union that serves 200,000 members in San Francisco and the North Bay, plans to deploy NCR SelfServ ATMs as replacements to 30 installed machines, including 28 non-NCR ATMs. Twenty-nine of the new SelfServ ATMs will include NCR's Scalable Deposit Module technology, which enables consumers to deposit cash and checks simultaneously in any orientation through a single slot.

Online Resources Corp.'s second-quarter revenue grew 5.4% year-over-year, to $38.3 million, from higher sales of e-commerce services.

Since 13-fold growth in business activity inside of a year is almost never wrong, Bank of New Zealand developed an Android app after Android visits to its mobile web browser spiked explosively in recent months.

Harland Clarke, the nation’s largest check printer, yesterday reported its core check printing business continued to decline in the second quarter, with revenues falling 8% due to volume declines in check and related products and decreased revenues per unit.

Cardtronics Inc. on Aug. 4 reported second-quarter revenues of $147.3 million, up 10.8% from $132.9 million during the same period ended June 30 last year. Net income rose 4.8%, to $8.7 million from 8.3 million.

NetSpend Holdings Inc. has learned the hard way that tapping into the vast market of underbanked consumers is not so easy.

CorFire is working to show it is ready to make a name for itself in mobile payments.

As part of a promotion to drive more cardholders to use credit cards to pay routine bills, customers of bill payment firm ChargeSmart Inc. will waive its service fees for customers who pay their utility bills using a Discover card, the companies recently announced.

Chris Olson doesn't count himself among EMV's detractors or evangelists. "It's a lot like Beta or VHS, you don't really know how it's going to turn out," says Fremont Bank's COO on the question of whether EMV cards (debit or credit cards embedded with a computer chip that meets the standard named for creators Europay, MasterCard and Visa), magnetic stripe cards or some other kind of point-of-sale plastic will dominate the U.S. card market in the future.

MasterCard Inc. is aiming to drive more prepaid card transactions over its payment network through a deal with Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

A possible tie-up between bank technology vendors Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, and Misys PLC has fallen through after the companies failed to agree on price.

Prepaid card marketer NetSpend Holdings Inc. reported a 10.3% second quarter year-over-year increase in revenue on Aug. 3 as use of its cards rose.

Though First Data Corp.’s second-quarter earnings show losses tied to debt service from a 2007 takeover by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., company executives pointed to positive revenue numbers and strong liquidity during an Aug. 3 conference call with analysts.

As financial institutions continue to cut debit card reward programs, new research suggests consumers spend more per month when they have an incentive to do so.

Visa Inc. fired the first shot in the post-Durbin pricing war, but MasterCard Worldwide is not ready to pull the trigger, at least not yet.

Touting heavier consumer and commercial card-spending as the economy gradually improves, MasterCard Worldwide on Aug. 3 said its second-quarter purchase volume showed healthy increases in all worldwide regions, with its biggest gains in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Increases in debit-network fees and favorable changes in foreign currency fueled a 5.4% increase in second-quarter revenue for First Data Corp., to $2.75 billion from $2.61 billion a year ago, the company reported Aug. 3.