Cards

Person-to-person payment is expected to be one of the big next deployments for mobile financial services, and ING Direct is an early adopter of the latest incarnation of the technology, becoming the first major financial institution to enable U.S. customers with iPhones to use them to send money to one another.

NetSpend Holdings Inc.’s first-quarter revenue rose 16% from a year earlier to $80.8 million as the activity on its prepaid debit cards increased and more of its customers began using direct deposit, the company announced May 5.

Helped by a rise in service and data-processing revenue and strong international transaction growth, Visa Inc. on May 5 reported a fiscal second quarter profit of $881 million, up 23.6% from $713 million a year earlier. Net operating revenue increased 14.8%, to $2.25 billion from $1.96 billion.

Michaels Stores Inc. on May 5 began alerting customers that PIN pads at its Chicago-area stores may have been tampered with and that debit and credit card information possibly was compromised.

It's a fact of doing business — even the most useful banking apps will not get as much screen time as Angry Birds. But bankers can learn from popular games and use similar technology as part of their customer interactions.

Hoping to replicate in Latin America the success of a payment card-based loyalty program similar to Canada’s Air Miles, Alliance Data Systems Corp. on May 5 said that its LoyaltyOne unit will play a key role in Banco do Brasil’s recently announced national rollout of Dotz, a broad payment card-based loyalty program.

Mobile users in India now have the ability to purchase tickets to the cricket Indian Premier League and movie theaters using Suvidha Starnet Pvt Ltd’s mobile-payment service.

The Central Bank of Afghanistan on April 25 granted the country’s first Electronic Money Institution license to M-Paisa, the first mobile funds-transfer service to operate in the country.

CHICAGO–A day after the Wall Street Journal reported Isis was changing its business model by working with other established payments organizations, an executive for the organization told a panel here at the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference nothing had changed.

CHICAGO—Further delay in U.S. migration to EMV chip-and-PIN technology might be another unintended consequence if the Federal Reserve Board’s proposed 12-cent cap on debit card interchange is enforced, two analysts agreed during a panel discussion here May 4 at the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference.

Merchant e-Solutions Inc. is rolling out a suite of mobile-payment applications on its new PayEverywhere platform, the company announced May 5

A nearly 68% boost in corporate card purchase volume helped Fleet card provider and processor Wright Express Corp. to report more than a 40% increase in first quarter revenue, Michael Dubyak, chairman, president and CEO, tells PaymentsSource.

For all the talk about the upcoming NFC-driven mobile payments revolution at the point of sale, new research from Oracle is throwing some cold water on the hype.

National Credit Union Administration released a study May 4 showing that many small credit unions currently lose money on their debit cards but for most credit unions debit is extremely lucrative.

Visa Inc. is likely to report positive second-quarter earnings Thursday afternoon, an analyst said.

Debit card issuers’ pain could be a gain for some payments processors.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is adding merchant accounts and is processing more transactions for its established merchants, thanks to a well-honed sales effort and a healthier economy.

Hoping to reach out to Brazil’s 75 million unbanked consumers, Banco PanAmericano SA, MasterCard Worldwide and Rev Worldwide have launched the country’s first reloadable prepaid card for everyday purchases, the Brazil-based bank announced April 29.

UC Mobile Corp. has entered China’s mobile-payments market in partnership with Alipay, the country’s largest independent online-payment platform based on transaction volume, the company announced April 21.

CHICAGO—At least one industry observer believes increasing contactless-payment adoption could help the United States to migrate to EMV chip-and-PIN technology and eventually to widespread mobile payments.