Cards

Citing increases in pension and other expenses, NCR Corp. on April 23 reported a net loss of $19 million for the first quarter ended March 31, a $4 million increase from the $15 million loss it reported for the same period last year. Revenues, however, improved slightly, to $1.03 billion $1.02 billion.

Increased revenue in several international markets contributed to positive first-quarter revenue growth for Ingenico SA, a France-based company. The company’s payment-terminal business experienced revenue growth after being “severely impacted” by the difficult economy in 2009, while its transaction-services business “performed in line with” company expectations, Ingenico noted April 21.

Shares of eBay Inc. reportedly had their biggest drop in more than a year Thursday after the company posted first-quarter earnings that missed estimates.

The Standard Online Tourism Architecture network, an e-tourism platform used by more than 16,000 travel operators in Malaysia, has reached an agreement with U.S.-based eBay’s Inc.’s PayPal online-payments service to enable member travel agents to make or receive cross-border payments online, according to a statement from Creative Advances Technology Sdn. Bhd., the network’s creator.

Visa Inc. has launched the first Visa-branded, multifunction prepaid card in Singapore that enables users to pay for trips on Singapore’s public transportation system and for purchases at merchants that accept Visa cards for payment, the card company announced April 22.

Check printer Deluxe Corp. reported a strong $33.4 net for its first quarter, more than twice the $12.5 million earned for the same period last year, when restructuring and impairment charges totaled $25.7 million.

U.S. bankcard issuers faced intense challenges in 2009 as the economy sank into a recession. Unemployment rates soared and home values tumbled, driving credit card charge-offs to hit new peaks, and consumers for the first time pulled back on credit card spending.

Apple Inc. has the power to make mobile payments huge, but apparently not quite the way bankers hope.

Credit Union 24, the nation’s largest credit-union owned point-of-sale debit network with nearly 500,000 merchant locations, has begun supporting PIN-less debit bill payments for participating member credit unions. Other networks, including Star and Pulse, have offered the service for more than a decade.

Canadian consumers will rely more on prepaid cards as consumer bankruptcies, industry losses and a voluntary code of conduct for the credit and debit card industries reshape the country’s payments industry, predicts Deloitte Canada’s Payments Practice in a report released April 22.

Prepaid card processor eCommLink Inc. on April 22 announced a program to assist companies in selling and distributing their own general-purpose reloadable prepaid debit cards. The program will enable companies to get started offering cards within two months.

Nagoya Railroad, the transportation bureau of the Japanese city of Nagoya, and four other public-transportation companies are planning to launch a contactless transit card called Manaca for use by riders of trains, buses and subways in Nagoya. The companies expect to complete the launch by next February.

Georgia Power Co. customers may pay their electricity bills at self-service kiosks deployed in seven Best Buy Co. stores throughout the Atlanta metropolitan area.

As card readers that attach to mobile phones continue to make headlines in the payments space, an Austin, Texas-based software company is putting a new spin on the trend.

Visa Inc.’s planned $2 billion cash purchase of CyberSource Corp., a payment-services and fraud-management provider, suggests the card company is serious about mobile payments–and the risks that the mobile channel may attract.

A significant increase in purchase transactions Total System Services Inc. processed during the first three months of the year may be an indication consumer confidence in the economy is rising, the Columbus, Ga.-based payment processor suggested in its first-quarter earnings results yesterday afternoon.

Ahli Bank Co. Ltd. of Qatar has expanded its ATM network within the country by deploying three new ATMs in the capital city of Doha, an official at the bank tells PaymentsSource.

Barclays Global Retail Bank India has linked its network of 12 ATMs with National Financial Switch, the country’s largest network of shared ATMs, an official at the National Payments Corp. of India tells PaymentsSource.

Visa Inc. today announced an agreement to purchase CyberSource Corp. to help the card brand’s e-commerce growth plans. Visa will purchase CyberSource for approximately $2 billion. The partnership also will help increase consumer use of debit, prepaid and credit products for online purchases, Visa says.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has taken an out-of-the-ordinary approach to encourage customers to use their signature rather than their PIN when making debit card purchases.