Cards

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia on June 9 dismissed a suit by Diebold Inc. requesting its insurer cover $6 million in losses from the theft by ATM supplier Tri-States Armored Services of some $50 million of cash it was supposed to be using to replenish ATMs for credit unions and banks.

Mirroring the growing chatter about the possibility of U.S. card issuers one day adopting EMV chip-and-PIN technology, panel discussions related to the topic were well attended during the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference in May.

NEW ORLEANS–For all talk about how mobile technology can rapidly bring financial services to emerging markets, it has really only worked in a few countries so far, most notably Kenya and the Philippines. Much of mobile money’s success in Kenya can be attributed to the work of Michael Joseph, a strategic advisor to Safaricom, who discussed here on June 7 his experiences building a new financial infrastructure in that country.

Hoping to stimulate card sales volume and promote its prepaid offerings, MasterCard Worldwide is teaming with Expedia Inc. for a summer vacation promotion dangling free gas to travelers.

U.S. Bancorp plans to begin issuing EMV chip credit cards that also include a tap-and-go payment function to U.S. customers this month.

Verification using India’s national biometric-identification system could provide a second level of authorization needed to secure card-present transactions initiated with magnetic stripe cards under a proposal outlined in a central bank working group report released June 2. It also may serve as an alternative to moving to EMV chip-and-PIN cards.

Bharti Airtel Telecom Co. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Pan-African banking group Ecobank Transnational Inc. to provide mobile-banking services across Africa, the companies announced June 7.

Visa Inc.’s acquisition of Fundamo will help it use mobile payments to serve more underbanked consumers abroad, according to the card network, which on June 9 announced a deal in which is will pay about $110 million for the Cape Town, South Africa-based mobile payments company.

The chances that Citigroup Inc.’s credit cardholders will experience card fraud stemming from a recent online data breach are low, but those customers are likely to be the target of phishing scams.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s shares rose as much as 9% in early trading June 9 after an analyst upgraded the payment processor’s stock on the expectation that it will benefit from the pending caps on debit interchange.

WASHINGTON — Although banks failed in their attempt to convince Congress to delay an interchange fee cap for debit cards, the financial services industry is not giving up, just changing venues.

A United Kingdom consumer-advocacy group is commending Monarch Airlines for dropping what it deems was an unfair debit card fee associated with ticket purchases. But whether Monarch’s move prompts other airlines to drop their similar fees remains to be seen.

Think Computer Corp. has added a contactless-payment capability to its FaceCash mobile wallet.

NEW ORLEANS–One of the prevailing themes of this year’s Mobile Banking Summit is there is nothing inherently wrong with plastic cards: A number of speakers, panelists and attendees with a major stake in mobile payments all acknowledge that physical cards work well, posing a steep hill to climb to get consumers to use their phones to make payments.

Consumers now may use China UnionPay-branded credit cards in Brazil under an agreement the card organization reached late last year with Brazil-based Itaú Unibanco S.A. that took effect in late May.

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Ltd. last week announced a free mobile-payment service that will enable its customers to make small-ticket purchases at merchant locations within the United Arab Emirates.

American Express Co. is trying to take prepaid debit cards, typically targeted at underbanked consumers, up market.

WASHINGTON — In a nail-biting conclusion after weeks of fierce lobbying by bankers and retailers, the Senate defeated a bill Wednesday that would have delayed the Federal Reserve Board's proposal to cap interchange fees for debit cards.

WASHINGTON – Credit unions and banks turned their focus to the courts this afternoon after the Senate narrowly voted down a proposal that would have delayed cuts in debit fees being enacted by the Federal Reserve.

WASHINGTON — Just hours before the Senate votes on the biggest post-Dodd-Frank bill for the industry, no one in Washington knows what the outcome will be.