Cards

Tyfone Inc. has received $5 million in financing from HDFC Holdings Ltd., Polaris Software Labe and Ojas Venture Partners, the provider of mobile-banking and mobile contactless-payment technology announced Sept. 7.

A growing number of payments-industry players are concerned that card-fraud rates may begin to rise sharply next year in the United States, one of the only remaining industrialized nations relying solely on magnetic stripe card technology while neighboring nations adopt more-secure EMV chip-and-PIN cards.

For months, financial institutions wondered what the financial reform legislation moving through Congress would mean for their businesses. The bill is now law, but a great deal of uncertainty remains because of the rulewriting that must now be done on debit card interchange fees and other topics.

The mobile banking train hasn’t left the station yet, but time is running low to be considered an early adopter before the service becomes ubiquitous among banks. In the case of Bank of the West, which introduced its new mobile platform in late August, now’s the time to jump in as more banks will likely view mobile as a must-have in the near future.

Commonwealth Bank Ltd. has added an extra security measure for its customers who shop online, according to the Australia-based bank.

A prepaid card company is trying to drive down fraud with an application that replaces plastic cards with virtual accounts that users access with mobile phones.

Only acquiring banks and the largest ISOs have to file formal written plans with the card brands to explain how they intend to bring the nation’s 5 million small retailers, restaurateurs and other mom-and-pop businesses into compliance with Payment Card Industry data security standards. But everybody in the credit and debit card “food chain” feels the sometimes-unpleasant effects of those plans.

VeriFone Systems Inc.’s $9 million deal this week to buy mobile point-of-sale terminal maker Way Systems Inc. is not surprising to analysts who follow the POS device industry (see story).

Consumers are willing to purchase high-ticket items such as concert tickets through mobile-payment services, although many are dissatisfied with the process, according to a survey Netsize NA released this month.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. on Sept. 1 announced it has entered a $5 million agreement with Discover Financial Services to settle claims stemming from the 2008 security breach of the Princeton, N.J.-based company’s processing systems.

Interchange-fee costs are the top concern among merchants, acquirers and processors that primarily handle card-not-present transactions, new survey data suggest.

FNBO Direct, a division of First National Bank of Omaha in Nebraska, and Cardlytics this week announced the launch of a digital rewards program that enables consumers to access merchant discount offers directly from their online bank accounts.

Spending on foreign-issued Visa-branded payment cards jumped by nearly 40% during the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games from a year ago, suggesting large, sponsored events can help drive considerable increases in card spending, data from Visa Inc. reveal.

Experts say Android is the hottest smartphone for mobile banking, but when it comes to payments, the Seattle coffee retailer hopes there is still a big opportunity in the increasingly neglected BlackBerry.

The pending overhaul of debit interchange regulations is widely expected to lead to cuts in banks' rewards programs, but it remains unclear how this could affect decoupled debit cards that have long promoted their lucrative rewards offers.

Closed-loop prepaid cards for digital content, government services and telecommunications helped grow the sector in 2009, to $205.4 billion in funds loaded into card accounts, up 7% from $191.8 billion the previous year, according to a report from the Mercator Advisory Group.

Cielo S.A., a Brazil-based merchant acquirer with approximately 1.2 million active merchant accounts, is buying 30,000 Optimum T4205 point-of-sale terminals from Hypercom Corp., the terminal maker announced Sept. 2.

Virtual gift card provider Giftango Corp. on Sept. 1 released a software-development kit that enables mobile-phone application companies to develop gift card products consumers may use at the point of sale or redeem online.

Inner Fence, which makes the Credit Card Terminal application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, on Sept. 1 announced it is shipping the Credit Card Reader, which attaches to an iPhone’s dock connector.

In its latest marketing promotion, MasterCard Worldwide is offering cardholders who live in or who visit New York City rich and “priceless” experiences, such as sporting, concert, shopping and culinary events. The card company’s goal is to demonstrate to cardholders the added value in using a MasterCard product for payment.