Cards

Contending the worst of the recession likely is over, Visa Inc. on Wednesday reported an increase in card spending both domestically and internationally for the company’s fiscal second quarter ended March 31.

A new payment card-fulfillment program from Total System Services Inc. and the Serverside Group Ltd. enables issuers to order relatively low quantities of customized cards on demand, the companies announced April 28.

Smartphone-based transactions represent an opportunity to grow U.S. card acceptance, which largely has become commoditized because most brick-and-mortar merchants accept payment cards. However, the challenge for independent sales organizations and other resellers of smartphone-based point-of-sale products may be locating mobile-merchant clients, observers say.

The Beijing branch of Hua Xia Bank and the Beijing Capital Highway Development Group have collaborated to launch a contactless card drivers may use to pay local highway tolls.

Commerzbank AG, a private and corporate bank based in Dusseldorf, Germany, on April 23 announced the renewal of a self-service technology contract with Wincor Nixdorf AG, the world’s second-largest ATM manufacturer based on annual shipments.

Now that converting paper checks into electronic transactions has gained widespread acceptance, bankers are considering a new payment format that would bypass paper altogether.

Four witnesses testifying April 28 before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on credit card interchange regulation agreed on one thing: A handful of the largest banks benefit most from interchange. And the potential effect of interchange-rate regulation on smaller community banks and credit unions, which struggle to compete against the giants, is murky.

Wincor Nixdorf AG April 28 reported a lower profit on reduced sales for the first half of fiscal 2010. However, second-quarter sales in the Americas exceeded one financial analyst’s expectations for the ATM maker.

RegaloCard LLC, a fledging mobile-payments company, announced April 28 it has inked agreements with several prepaid phone card distributors to place its card-based funds-transfer service in more than 100,000 retailers across the United States. The Miami-based company’s service is designed to enable consumers to receive funds from the U.S. to use to pay for products and services as participating store locations in Central America.

Restaurateurs may have another reason to use pay-at-the-table terminals from Ingenico S.A., which has added software to the devices to help lower the interchange rates for credit and debit card transactions.

A majority of qualified security professionals that assess compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard believe encryption is the most-effective means of protecting card data, according to a study released April 27 by Thales Group and the Ponemon Institute.

China’s leading online-payment platform provider Alipay is set to receive 5 billion yuan (US$731 million or 538 million euros) over the next three years from its parent, Hangzhou-based Alibaba Group.

Residents of the Bangladesh city of Dhaka soon may use contactless prepaid cards to pay bus fares, an official at private operator Suchana Associates Bus Co., tells PaymentsSource.

Cool. Hip. Fresh. These words are rarely used to describe traditional retail banking.

Fidelity National Information Services yesterday reported that first quarter net income almost tripled to $93.6 million after last year’s combination with Metavante Technologies.

Diebold Inc. on April 26 signed an agreement to manage ATMs owned by Zao Citibank, a subsidiary of Citibank Russia. The management deal follows Zao Citibank’s agreement to lease ATMs from Diebold.

MasterCard Worldwide absorbed a sharp downturn in U.S. consumer credit card purchase volume and total consumer credit card accounts in 2009 as the recession drove consumers to cut spending. But the company turned a healthy profit anyway, thanks to its success in other areas, including relatively strong international purchase volume.

Diebold Inc. April 27 reported lower first-quarter revenues, but executives say the North Canton, Ohio-based company is booking more orders for intelligent-deposit ATMs from regional and community banks that previously were reluctant to open their wallets.

A directive Visa issued last week should make it clear to online merchants that they are not allowed to offer consumers third-party offers without asking for their card information a second time, the card brand noted in an April 27 statement.

Fidelity National Information Services Inc. said that even though consumers are willing to use online person-to-person payments, banks have to be proactive in making the service visible.