Cards

A Senate subcommittee yesterday endorsed a bill that would cap interchange fees charged to federal government entities for taxes and other services at the lowest market rate, continuing efforts to lower interchange fees charged by credit unions and banks.

A provision in the regulatory reform law that received scant attention during the protracted debate in Congress is already generating more business at some debit networks.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are not immune to effects from pending debit-interchange regulation contained within the financial reform bill President Obama signed into law last week, Moody’s Investors Service said in a July 26 report.

Stuart Harvey Jr., CEO of Atlanta-based Elavon Inc., is leaving the payment processor, next month, Elavon says. Mike Passilla, currently Elavon’s executive vice president for global business development, will replace Harvey on Aug. 16 as president and CEO.

Nxgen Payment Services’ MerchReport.com service that enables merchants to pinpoint transactions that could have been processed at less-expensive rates is diversifying the independent sales organization’s portfolio, says Michael Jaffe, Nxgen vice president of global marketing and new programs.

Standard Chartered Bank Zambia PLC has suspended access to its 27 ATMs in Zambia because of fraud involving counterfeit Visa-branded debit cards, local newspaper Lusaka Times reported.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. has signed a partnership agreement with Mumbai-based Union Bank of India to launch a bill-payment and mobile top-up service in India, a spokesperson for the Delhi-based telecommunication operator tells PaymentsSource.

Veritec Financial Systems Inc. has entered into an agreement with a California-based global broadcasting system to market its Visa-branded prepaid debit card to Asian communities worldwide.

Co-op Financial Services July 26 announced three new credit union partners with institutions in Oregon and Washington.

Citigroup Inc. has told its U.S. mobile banking customers they should upgrade to a new application for Apple Inc.'s iPhone after the bank's original version was found to have a security flaw, reports Dow Jones.

Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC will offer a New York startup's mobile coupon technology to its merchant customers under an agreement the companies finalized last week.

Metro Bank PLC, perhaps the first new retail bank in the United Kingdom in a century, has agreed to offer MasterCard Inc. credit and debit cards to customers when it opens its doors Thursday.

Merchant-branded gift cards for quick-service restaurants and specialty stores experienced significant gains in the first half of 2010, according to a new report from First Data Corp.

National Processing Co., a Louisville, Ky.-based merchant acquirer, announced July 26 plans to resell integrated point-of-sale payment software made by Datacap Systems Inc.

EMV payments are continuing to grow in a variety of venues in Europe, the latest rollout being a deal to supply 1,600 Hypercom Optimum M4100 EMV mobile payment terminals to taxi cabs in Stockholm.

Discover Financial Services’ merchant-acquiring efforts impressed independent sales organization and acquiring respondents to a recent Aite Group LLC survey.

Citizens in the state of Maharashtra in India now may pay their electricity bills online, according to an official from the state’s electricity board.

Hypercom Corp. last week announced a deal in Sweden in which a taxi company in Stockholm is deploying 1,600 of its Optimum M4100 “Blade” payment terminals.

CreditCall Ltd. is developing a mobile-payment application to enable merchants to accept secure chip-and-PIN transactions on Blackberry and other smart phones, the United Kingdom-based payment processor announced last week.

NCR Corp.’s foreign business in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region helped the ATM manufacturer post $31 million in net income for the second quarter ended June 30, up 29.2% from $24 million during the same period last year.