Cards

Philippines-based e-commerce payment specialist Mozcom Inc. in August announced a partnership with Dragonpay Corp. enabling consumers who lack credit cards to pay for online purchases at its walk-in payment centers.

Australia’s government in August announced plans to fund a national financial-literacy course for students at its public chools that will teach the basics of money-management and how to evaluate credit card offers.

Two of Japan’s major contactless mass-transit payment card systems will become interoperable next year, significantly expanding the systems’ reach, Central Japan Railway Co. said on August 11.

Payment processor RBS WorldPay Inc. has class A certified Way Systems Inc.’s way5000 mobile point-of-sale device for use on its network.

Credit unions are expanding beyond Apple's iPhone to develop mobile banking applications for other devices, in particular those running the Google Android operating system.

Transaction Network Services Inc. said last week that it will supply gateway services for Continental Airlines Inc. to process payments for reservations made online.

Intuit Inc. says the payment services it sells as add-ons for QuickBooks customers are becoming the main attraction — and it says QuickBooks may eventually become the add-on.

In trying to boost participation in its debit rewards program and attract customers for its other products, Regions Financial Corp. took an approach that could help it cushion the potential loss of card revenue from new regulations.

New federal rules regulating fees and expiration dates for all gift cards went into effect Sunday, whether the cards are sold by a merchant, shopping center, credit union or bank.

Bank of America Corp. is collaborating with Visa Inc. and DeviceFidelity Inc. on a mobile-payment program to begin next month in New York enabling consumers’ smart phones to operate as contactless-payment devices, Visa confirms.

Apple Inc. increased speculation that it plans to develop an NFC-enabled iPhone with its hiring this month of mFoundry executive Benjamin Vigier, who has played a key role in developing mobile payment applications for PayPal Inc. and Starbucks Corp.

Mobile-marketing firm Mocapay Inc. this month announced a strategic partnership with payments processor eNational Payments with the goal of helping merchants to deliver customized coupons and other promotions to consumers via mobile handsets.

India’s improving economy is helping to drive higher overall payment card usage, with debit cards growing significantly faster than credit cards, new data from India’s central bank show.

Banco Nacional de Costa Rica ordered more than 13,000 Hypercom Corp. Optimum countertop and mobile payment terminals, which it plans to distribute to merchants throughout Costa Rica.

Credit card profits more than doubled for Target Corp. in its fiscal second quarter, helping to boost its overall earnings.

Vertifi Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eastern Corporate Credit Union, said it has developed a fully-featured mobile banking iPhone application for members of Randolph-Brooks FCU in Live Oak, Texas, and it is now available on the App Store.

MasterCard Inc. Thursday fired what analysts say is the next shot in the payments industry’s battle to gain ground in the burgeoning e-commerce market with its planned $520 million purchase of DataCash Group PLC.

Visa Inc.’s most recent statistics of merchant compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard shows that 100% of the largest U.S. merchants—those processing more than 1 million annual Visa transactions—have validated their point-of-sale systems as not storing prohibited data.

Checks may be getting an extended life now that financial institutions are developing and rolling out mobile remote-deposit capture technology as part of their mobile-banking applications, observers say.

Barclays Bank PLC of London said Monday that it is outsourcing ATM services to NCR Corp.