Cards

NamPost Savings Bank Ltd. has launched a “Tourist Card” for consumers visiting Namibia.

WASHINGTON – Credit union lobbyists were undeterred last week after the congressional conference to set the final bank reform bill opened with key lawmakers pledging to retain the controversial provision that would establish federal price controls over debit card interchange.

MIAMI — Jack Dorsey wants to give the taco trucks of the world an easier way to serve card-carrying consumers. But the founder of the payments software provider Square Inc. has his sights set on big-box retailers as well.

Industry consensus is mounting to suggest that some form of the debit-interchange amendment crafted by U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., will be included in the reconciled financial-reform bill. But top payments-consulting firms continue to parse the amendment’s potential effects.

Ingenico S.A. anticipates generating 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in annual revenue by 2013, the France-based point-of-sale terminal maker announced June 9 during an investor’s presentation.

Mocapay Inc. on June 10 announced a partnership with point-of-sale equipment reseller Postec Inc. that will enable merchants to support both mobile payments and mobile promotions.

The New South Wales Supreme Court has ordered the Australian state’s government to produce copies of ministerial briefing papers and minutes of internal meetings related to a terminated contract tied to the Tcard transport smartcard system, local newspaper Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The Indian city of Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) soon will roll out its first contactless smart card for shopping and transit use, an official from the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corp. Ltd. tells PaymentsSource.

TD Bank was one of the last top 10 North American financial companies to offer mobile banking, but is hoping to leapfrog the competition by introducing some unusual services.

In urging Congress to delete the interchange amendment from the pending bank reform bill credit union executives were put in an unusual position of arguing that an exemption – a so-called carve-out – from the amendment that they have sought in other bills is unworkable and impracticable.

Millions of dollars in ads are being printed and carried over the airwaves by credit unions and banks and their nemeses in the interchange amendment to the bank bill, the nation’s retailing groups, in the biggest credit union lobbying effort in more than a decade.

MasterCard Worldwide June 8 announced the launch of a free online bill-pay service prepaid debit card issuers and program managers may offer to their cardholders. The card company is partnering with Aliawire Inc., a payment processor that has developed an electronic bill-payment product specifically designed for prepaid cardholders.

Citigroup Inc. will be making contactless payment stickers available to customers in select cities this summer, PaymentsSource has learned.

Hundreds of credit union executives criss-crossed the halls of Congress Wednesday in an effort to convince lawmakers to scrap the provision of the bank reform bill that would establish price controls over debit card interchange, but their efforts face great odds.

TaxiEpay, a unit of Australia-based Live Group, has begun deploying more than 3,500 Hypercom Corp. terminals to support a new payment card-acceptance system for taxis in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based terminal maker announced June 8.

Malaysia’s CIMB Bank Bhd. and telecommunications company Celcom Axiata Bhd. have formed a partnership to speed up how quickly the telco’s customers can pay their mobile bills, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based bank

Motorists in Sharjah, the third-largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates, soon will be able to renew their parking smart cards and pay fines at self-service machines in the city’s malls, a spokesperson for the Sharjah Municipality Transport and Freight Department tells PaymentsSource.

ElectraCard Services Pvt. Ltd. has signed on to participate in MasterCard Worldwide’s Partners in Prepaid program, the India-based provider of software services for electronic payment systems announced in a statement last week.

Industry groups continued their full-court press Wednesday to keep an interchange provision out of the final regulatory reform bill, but whether they could succeed was an open question.

MasterCard Inc. announced Wednesday that it has formed a joint venture with Smart Hub Inc. to develop a global mobile payment system.