Cards

Prepaid card issuer MetaBank will pay $4.8 million to customers under an order from regulators in the latest fallout from a discontinued high-interest, small-balance loan product.

The final parameters of an antitrust settlement submitted to a federal court in New York Friday by the Department of Justice promises to give merchants and cardholders more choices when paying for goods and services by preventing Visa and MasterCard from enforcing anti-steering bylaws.

Still on the fence about EMV? High uptake from an early adopter, the United Nations Federal Credit Union, is allowing it to expand the card's availability, and provides evidence U.S. cardholders really like to use chip and PIN cards when traveling overseas.

Mobile-based payment services could account for US$350 billion in payments and banking transactions in India by 2015, producing fee income that could exceed US$4.5 billion, a new report suggests.

As the first Irish bank to promote contactless payments, The Bank of Ireland plans to use one-on-one communications with cardholders to promote the benefits of contactless payment technology when it rolls out Visa payWave cards later this year.

Responding to consumer demand for multiple alternative online-payment options, Retail Decisions Ltd. has added six payment types to its fraud-prevention and payment-processing offerings, the company announced July 7.

Supporting acceptance of electronic payments at large, international sporting events promotes higher transaction volumes among tourists for the countries that host them even after the events are over, according to a recent tourism impact report from Visa Inc.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau likely will focus on the mortgage industry when it officially opens its doors July 21, some observers believe. And while the agency has made it known it will examine the prepaid card market, its specific intentions remains unclear.

As his company continues its mission to replace wallets and traditional payment terminals, MobilePayUSA CEO Randy Smith believes his company’s Virtual Terminal represents “more than a new way to pay; you are getting payments and marketing.”

Demand is far outstripping supply these days in mobile remote deposit capture, new research suggests.

Acknowledging the growing movement toward EMV chip-and-PIN technology in the U.S., most card-security professionals believe banks eventually will move away from issuing magnetic stripe cards, albeit slowly, a new survey report suggests.

Powered by an influx of credit card customers who are continuing to use their cards for routine spending while paying off their outstanding balances at a higher rate, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Card Services unit on July 14 reported a strong increase in second quarter profits and spending volume.

Investors are listening closely to reports of a possible initial public offering of stock later this year by Vantiv LLC, one of the nation’s largest card processors.

To sign up for a Dwolla account and integrate it with a credit-union account was a fairly tedious process that could take two to three days–until FiSync came along to streamline the task to less than a minute.

When Matt Weidler made the long walk from his desk to the ATM and realized he had forgotten his debit card yet again, he decided the best thing to do was to reinvent the ATM.

Banks and credit card companies are likeliest to succeed in mobile payments, contend business executives surveyed recently.

Not many companies are doubling their business estimates for the next year, but PayPal Inc. has done just that by projecting a 100% upside for mobile payments. Today it pushed the gas even harder by making Near Field Communication technology available as part of peer-to-peer payments.

The Chicago area’s regional transportation systems have until 2015 to develop a universal transit fare system commuters could use across three different schemes under legislation signed into law last week.

Merchants will have a difficult time reaping all the benefits they stand to gain from a pending antitrust settlement between the two largest U.S. credit card networks and the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

An ATM services provider sums up the situation this way: “Don’t be discouraged. There is still ample opportunity within the ATM industry.”