Cards

Small-business owners’ confidence rose slightly in September, halting a three-month decline as more business owners’ cash flow improved, according to new survey data Discover Financial Services released Sept. 27.

U.S. law-enforcement officials are investigating a security breach involving “a limited number” of PIN-debit terminals deployed at Aldi grocery stores, a spokesperson for the Batavia, Ill.-based company tells PaymentsSource. Aldi stores accept only PIN-debit transactions and cash for payment at the point of sale.

Pivotal Payments’ plan to buy 33,000 Hypercom Corp. point-of-sale terminals for distribution to Canadian merchants is the independent sales organization’s largest terminal purchase to date, Frank LoSchiavo, Pivotal senior vice president of sales, tells PaymentsSource.

West Lafayette, Ind.-based Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union introduced a new way for Harrison High School and Jefferson High School students, parents and fans to show their school spirit: offering them student-designed debit card designs.

More consumers are using mobile phones to pay bills, but specifically how they are doing so requires more study, according Fiserv Inc., which identified the gap in information earlier this year when it polled 2,000 households as part of the technology company’s 2010 Billing Household online survey (see story).

Think Finance, a provider of financial products to the underbanked, said Thursday that it has received a $90 million credit facility from Victory Park Capital Advisors of Chicago to help it expand its offerings.

Regulatory reforms may help MasterCard Inc. steal debit card market share from Visa Inc., but it's not clear whether that would do much for its bottom line.

The six-month deadline extension for Canada’s merchants to convert to EMV chip-and-PIN technology points to certain technical difficulties some have encountered during the lengthy process, observers say.

CardinalCommerce Corp. says it has developed technology to enable online merchants to offer consumers a PIN-debit payment option at the checkout screen or through a mobile phone, while Acculynk Inc. separately is building its Web-based PIN-debit payment service.

The PCI Security Standards Council this fall plans to launch a website dedicated to small merchants, which have asked the council for help in understanding how data-security measures affect them.

Qatar National Bank Ltd. has launched the first mobile-to-mobile funds-transfer service in Qatar, the Doha-based bank announced Sept. 22.

Guatemalan restaurant chain Taco Inn has joined RegaloCard LLC’s mobile funds-transfer network, the mobile-payments firm announced Sept. 23.

Alexandria, Va.-based CommonWealth One FCU is paying members up to $1.50 per bill to teach them how to enroll in its online bill payment service.

Pivotal Payments, a merchant acquirer in Melville, N.Y., has agreed to purchase up to 33,000 payment terminals from Hypercom Corp.

The Federal Reserve Board or the planned Consumer Financial Protection Bureau likely will have considerable input into any future regulation regarding network-branded reloadable prepaid debit cards, two industry observers suggest.

MasterCard Worldwide is “tailoring strategies” around specific foreign-market situations to expand its global card-business opportunities, Walter Macnee, the card brand’s president of international markets, told attendees at the company’s symposium for media and analysts held Sept. 23 at MasterCard’s headquarters in Purchase, N.Y.

MasterCard Worldwide expects to increase its U.S. debit market share as a result of new network-routing rules included in pending federal changes in debit card interchange policies, Chris McWilton, MasterCard’s U.S. Markets president, said Sept. 23 at the company’s symposium for media and analysts at its headquarters in Purchase, N.Y.

The time to prepare for EMV and advanced encryption appears to have arrived.

The head of a company that supplied cash to New York-area ATMs last week pleaded guilty to a fraud scheme that siphoned as much as $50 million from credit union and bank customers.

Bharti Airtel Ltd. has become the first mobile operator in India to receive a license from the Reserve Bank of India to offer mobile-payment services, the New Delhi-based company announced Sept. 22.