Cards

Merchant Warehouse Inc., a Boston-based independent sales organization that offers software designed to help small retailers find the lowest-cost processing for card transactions, could benefit from Congress’ approval July 15 of the Dodd-Frank Act, says Henry Helgeson, the company’s co-CEO.

NetSpend Corp.’s planned initial public offering could help it fend off increased competition from banks and develop new features to win over unbanked consumers, industry watchers say.

Though the Federal Reserve Board has yet to determine debit card interchange rates as mandated under the federal financial-reform bill Congress approved July 15, the decrease in annualized debit card revenue before mitigation at Bank of America Corp. could approach $2 billion starting in the third quarter of next year, Charles Noski, BofA Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, told analysts this morning during a conference call to discuss second quarter earnings (see story).

MasterCard Worldwide said July 15 that it received enough support from card issuers to proceed with a $41.4 million settlement in the Heartland Payments Systems breach, but dozens of credit unions and banks are still holding out as part of a class action lawsuit filed against Heartland.

Even before President Obama has signed the landmark bank reform bill into law credit union lobbyists were moving their attention to the Federal Reserve, which the new law will direct to monitor and possibly set price caps on debit card interchange.

As the prepaid market evolves, the networks processors use to support proprietary, closed-loop services use will be the next generation of networks best used to support alternative payments, contends T. Jack Williams, president of Dallas-based consultancy Paymentcard Services Inc. and a long-time player in the prepaid industry.

Jacksonville (Fla.) University plans to the launch an upgraded version of its campus card program next month, enabling students and faculty members to use their campus identification cards to make purchases both on and off campus, according to a July 13 announcement.

The Bank of the Philippine Islands and Globe Telecom Inc. on July 14 launched a cashierless payment service to enable the Philippines-based telecommunication operator’s subscribers who also hold accounts at the bank to pay their Globe bills using the bank’s mobile and online-banking platforms

NetSpend Corp. plans to issue up to $200 million of stock in an initial public offering, the Austin prepaid card company disclosed Thursday in a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By offering a mobile service that addresses a common need, JPMorgan Chase & Co. might also get people to use their phones for a type of payment of which few people are even aware.

More large financial institutions likely will begin to explore the realoadable prepaid card market now that the Senate today passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, observes one industry analyst.

Some consumers continue to become more dissatisfied with banks because of the product and service fees they assess and are considering alternative products to checking accounts, such as prepaid cards, according to Mintel Comperemedia, a Chicago-based research firm.

The Co-operative Group Ltd. and Barclaycard UK announced July 14 an agreement in which the grocery-store operator will become the first major United Kingdom food retailer to accept contactless payment.

U.S. Bankcard Services Inc., an Industry, Calif.-based independent sales organization, has added China UnionPay card acceptance to its list of merchant services.

As smart-phone use and consumer demand for mobile-banking applications increase, Bluepoint Solutions has developed a mobile remote-deposit capture application that enables smaller financial institutions to participate in what is likely to become the next big trend in self-service banking.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this week granted interim approval of an ATM-sharing deal between Bendigo & Adelaide Bank and Suncorp Metway Ltd. that will allow the institutions’ customers to access each other’s ATMs free of charge, an official at the regulator confirms.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate turned away the concerns of community banks, credit unions and the vast majority of Republican members this afternoon to vote final passage of the financial reform bill by a vote of 60 to 39, sending the measure on for President Obama to sign into law.

Visa Inc. announced July 15 the launch of the first phase of a national U.S. marketing campaign to increase the awareness of the benefits of using reloadable prepaid cards instead of cash.

Regulatory reform survived its last significant hurdle Thursday with the Senate moving to block further changes and hold a final vote on the bill.

The prepaid card market has come a long way over the past two decades, and T. Jack Williams has been there since virtually the beginning. As director of membership services at Blockbuster Entertainment, Williams played a key role in creating the world’s first merchant gift card program in the spring of 1994. He later went on to help launch the Kmart Cash Card in 1997 while at Stored Value Systems, at the time a division of National City Bank (see bio). This was the first merchant gift card that also included AT&T long-distance minutes.