Cards

Fledging mobile-payments company RegaloCard LLC announced May 26 a distribution agreement with IDT Corp. to place its card-based funds-transfer service in more than 150,000 retailers across the United States.

Deutsche Card Services GmbH this week signed an agreement to become the acquirer and service provider supporting Media-Saturn Holdings GmbH’s online commerce. The Germany-based electronics retailer says the deal will enable it to accept transactions online more securely.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers soon will be able to pay their utility bills with Apple Inc.’s iPhone as part of a pilot the San Francisco-based utility agreed to with bill-payments expediter Tio Networks Corp.

While card issuers and payments networks are focusing their attention on the potential consumer harm from a Senate amendment that could lower debit card interchange rates, how it might affect issuers’ bottom lines remains murky, observers say.

Mirroring what others are saying about the future of Near Field Communication-enabled mobile payments in the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reveals in a May 23 report that widespread adoption of the technology will not occur for at least another five years.

VeriFone Systems Inc.’s new PIN-entry device authentication service adds another element of security by periodically monitoring PIN pads to ensure they are legitimate, the terminal maker announced May 25.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has dropped its antitrust probe of the local subsidiary of eBay Inc. after the online auction site said it would remove a requirement that sellers offer PayPal as a payment option, the regulator announced recently. PayPal is eBay’s online-payment unit.

Visa Inc. and Monitise PLC plan to form a joint venture to provide mobile financial services in India, the companies announced May 26. They expect the joint-venture deal to close in June.

Visa Inc. is stepping up its funds-transfer operations in the U.S. after pushing the technology abroad for several years.

Credit Union National Association on Tuesday said it has terminated talks aimed at minimizing the onerous interchange provisions in the bank reform bill and has changed focus to knocking the provision out of the bill when Senate and House leaders meet to reconcile different versions of the legislation.

Though legislation that would permit merchants to set minimum and maximum limits on card transactions remains pending in Congress, it is gaining a lot of attention among merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations.

First Data Corp.’s new chief Joe Forehand is wasting no time in shaking things up within the debt-laden processing company, as indicated by the company’s May 25 announcement of the unexpected departure of three top executives, including its recently hired chief financial officer, W. Patrick Shannon.

MasterCard Worldwide is planning to open up its software format, enabling third-party programmers to develop payments applications for its network. The company on May 25 said it would release open application programming interfaces for developers later this year.

Credit Union National Association lobbyists broke off negotiations congressional leaders last Thursday and are instead firing up the CU grassroots to lobby for provisions they hope will minimize the impact of interchange amendments added to the bank reform bill passed by the Senate last week.

Equity Bank is partnering with telecommunication firm Safaricom Ltd. to launch a mobile funds-transfer service called M-Kesho, the Kenya-based bank announced in a statement. The service will launch by the end of this month.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has added two so-called Instant Action text-alert features to its mobile-banking service.

Starting Jan. 1, Vermont merchants will be able to set spending minimums for debit and credit card payments under a bill that became law last week despite concerns from the state's governor.

The utility of prepaid cards is growing as marketers develop features that can strengthen their customer relationships.

The best thing about mobile payment apps is not the speed of transactions made with phones, but how the apps let people manage their accounts on their own instead of wasting time at the register, according to early results from retailers.

Widespread use of contactless payment in the U.S. remains three to five years away because merchants and issuers still lack compelling incentives to promote the technology, experts concluded recently at the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.