Cards

Fiserv Inc. is adding Cardlytics Inc.’s merchant-funded rewards program to its menu of online-banking services alongside Fiserv’s own UChoose Rewards credit and debit rewards program, the technology company announced April 4.

Consumers can check the balances of their health care accounts with new mobile applications that U.S. Bancorp announced April 8.

WASHINGTON – Jaws were dropping around Capitol Hill this week as CUNA President Bill Cheney began a tour of Senate offices with Camden Fine, head of the credit unions’ most virulent enemy, the Independent Community Bankers Association, to lobby for delay of the interchange rule. “Many in Washington know that credit unions and community banks do not see eye-to-eye on a number of key issues, but on this issue, there is no debate: The new interchange rules will have a devastating impact on the smaller financial institutions and their consumers/members we are proud to represent,” said Cheney of his teaming with the group that continues to fight increase in member business lending and for repeal of the credit union tax exemption. “We are more than willing to put aside our differences as an outward sign to Congress and the public of how crucial this issue is to our industries,” said the credit union figure. The CUNA figure and the community banking leader conceded that their efforts to lobby on behalf of credit unions and small banks are an important part of the interchange debate, where a handful of banks control an estimated 80% of the $20 billion a year in debit interchange. “The thousands of community banks and credit unions we represent want senators to know the truth—that the carve-out won’t work and will only harm Main Street by costing consumers more,” said Fine, of the exemption from the price caps the Federal Reserve is supposed to preserve for credit unions and banks under $10 billion. The credit unions and banks have joined hands with Visa and MasterCard, the two card giants they control, in a powerful Electronic Payments Coalition to fight the debit rule and have lobbied for a bill that would delay enactment of the rule for as long as two years.

Budget-tightening is prompting more state and federal agencies to expand the types of benefits distributed using prepaid cards, including unemployment and Social Security, as they look to reduce costs associated with cutting paper checks.

Standard Chartered Bank India Pvt. Ltd. has launched a debit card designed for small and midsize business owners in India, the bank announced March 28.

Standard Chartered Bank India Pvt. Ltd. has launched a debit card designed for small and midsize business owners in India, the bank announced March 28.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Barney Frank, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, denied Thursday that he and Chairman Spencer Bachus were at work on a corrections bill to the Dodd-Frank Act enacted last year, saying only two parts of the law need to be addressed: executive compensation disclosure requirements and debit interchange fee restrictions.

Regulatory pressures represent the top challenge facing the prepaid industry, followed by market awareness and concerns expressed about fees from consumer advocacy groups and the media, a new report suggests.

More than 3,300 financial institutions are using Fiserv Inc.’s remote deposit capture services, the technology vendor announced April 6.

The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association is following the lead of other payments-industry bodies such as NACHA by hosting a planned annual conference dedicated to players in its sector with a focus on government regulations, the organization announced April 7.

Potential client losses are the biggest risk Epsilon faces from a data breach that exposed customers’ e-mail addresses, the marketing firm’s parent said April 6.

Online merchants in India increasingly are turning to cash on delivery as a payment method to cater to growing numbers of shoppers who prefer not to use credit cards.

WASHINGTON — In the battle over the potential negative effects for community banks from the Dodd-Frank Act, it all comes down to the Durbin amendment.

Prepaid account provider OneCard Co. has signed a strategic partnership with e-Net, a spokesperson for Kuwait-based online-payments provider tells PaymentsSource.

Discover Financial Services is getting into the person-to-person payments game with PayPal Inc. following the recent rollout of competing services from Visa Inc. and American Express Co.

A judge has denied the government's motion to dismiss TCF Financial Corp.'s lawsuit over debit fee regulation.

WASHINGTON — Bankers, lawmakers and other opponents of a rule to limit interchange fees on debit cards are making the most of the opportunity after the Federal Reserve Board acknowledged last week that it could not comply with an April 21 statutory deadline to finalize the regulation.

The top banks once uniformly processed large payments before small ones. Now they're processing high to low, low to high and everything in between.

The mobile-payment venture Isis, formed by major U.S. wireless carriers, is shaping its first major test around a lesson banks have learned with contactless payments: to change the way consumers pay, a payment system should change the way they get to work.

OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Bhd. is waiving the foreign fees it charges customers when they use ATMs of other financial institutions for two of its customer account types, a spokesperson from the Kuala Lumpur-based bank tells PaymentsSource.