Cards

While most bank mobile apps are focused initially on iPhones, then move to Blackberry and Android in subsequent rollouts, it would appear that Android and iPhone are the way to go as BlackBerry falls behind its two rivals in sales.

In a sign Canadian consumers continue to prefer to use debit cards to pay for small-ticket purchases, restaurant chain Tim Hortons Inc. is expanding acceptance of Interac debit cards to some 3,000 locations.

HSBC Bank Egypt has launched a Visa-branded debit card for its Platinum and Advance savings-account customers in Egypt, the issuer announced Nov. 21.

WASHINGTON — Despite ardent opposition from community banks, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. followed through Wednesday on a new set of guidelines aimed at curbing abuse of automated overdraft programs.

Visa Inc. is fattening its online shopping wallet, Rightcliq.

Gift card provisions that took effect in August under the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act should continue to diminish the lost value of unused funds on the cards, according to new research from TowerGroup.

Banks in India will be verifying applicants for Visa-branded payment cards using the Unique Identification Authority of India’s Aadhaar citizen identification-number scheme, a top official from the government authority tells PaymentsSource.

Omnego Inc. has launched a mobile wallet application that converts physical loyalty cards including stores’ coupons, rewards and other merchant updates into digital formats usable on mobile devices such as smart phones, the Toronto-based mobile technology company recently announced.

Consumers in the northern part of the state of Haryana in India soon may begin paying their electricity bills online, according to Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, a state-owned power utility.

Two major retail chains in Australia recently announced deals to accept contactless cards by the end of this year.

Instant-redemption opportunities, such as receiving cash back at the register, are causing more consumers to choose one card-based loyalty program over another, while airline mileage-earning programs are less alluring, according to new research from Chicago-based Mintel Comperemedia.

With Black Friday later this week marking the official launch of the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation said its 2010 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions survey has found that 43% of holiday shoppers will rely on debit cards as a primary form of payment, up from 34.3% who said so in a similar survey in 2005.

Diebold Inc. has entered a bid to buy Henry Bros. Electronics Inc. to bolster its security business, according to a press release from a competitor.

Bank of America Corp. is building on its mobile payments strategy with plans to issue contactless stickers to its credit and debit card customers next year.

Closed-loop gift cards represent the oldest sector for prepaid cards, but new ways of thinking are needed for the market to grow, one research analyst suggests.

The man who developed the concept for what is now the most popular social-networking website has created a mobile-payments application that relies on facial recognition to confirm a user’s identity at the point of sale.

Holiday shoppers are turning away from using credit cards as their main payment option this season, according to an online survey Harris Interactive conducted for prepaid provider Green Dot Corp. Harris polled 2,288 U.S. adults 18 and older from Nov. 10 to 12.

Despite growth in Germany’s e-commerce market within the past year, Deutsche Card Services GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank Group AG, believes merchants should support multiple languages on their websites to attract international customers and enable Germany to compete better with other European e-commerce merchants.

Kuwait Finance House Co. Ltd. has launched a prepaid card targeting Kuwaiti youths ages 15 to 21, the Kuwait City-based bank recently announced.

Bank of America Corp. is planning to issue contactless payment stickers to at least some of its card customers, a source familiar with the plans said.