Cards

BETHESDA, Md. – Allpoint Network, operator of a surcharge-free ATM network, yesterday said it has renewed its agreement with FSV Payment Systems to provide surcharge-free access for prepaid debit cards issued by the company.

MasterCard Worldwide says chip-and-PIN card issuers have countermeasures available to help prevent an attack that could authenticate a card with a false PIN. MasterCard would not say what the countermeasures include.

Hoping to differentiate its product from others in the marketplace, Whitebox Partners LLC has developed a reloadable prepaid debit card with a rewards program usually associated with credit and debit cards.

Woodforest Financial Group has renewed an agreement with the Pulse electronic funds transfer network in which Pulse will provide the privately held bank holding company ATM and PIN-based point-of-sale debit services, both companies announced recently.

Some of the nation’s largest banks are offering cash incentives to encourage customers to activate and use their debit cards as the financial institutions seek to recover revenue from expected declines in overdraft-fee revenue.

Social-networking site Multiply has inked a deal for settling online payments with G-Xchange Inc., a statement from the telecom operator said. G-Xchange is a wholly owned subsidiary of Philippines-based Globe Telecom.

Monitise Americas LLC is planning to introduce a version of its Mobile Money application for phones that use Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

The Internal Revenue Service, in probing how $100 billion of credit card payments escape sales and income taxes each year, is looking at clients of processors including First Data Corp.

RIVERWOODS, Ill. – Discover Financial Services said it paid its former parent, Morgan Stanley, $775 million from a $2.75 antitrust settlement with Visa and MasterCard agreed to before the card company was spun off from Morgan Stanley in 2007.

Visa Inc.’s plan to add mobile-phone payment capabilities to handsets available now could provide a shot in the arm for contactless payment.

Cambridge University researchers looking into chip-and-PIN security say they successfully tricked a point-of-sale terminal into accepting a “dummy” PIN for a smart card using a “man-in-the-middle” attack.

A new regulation approved by the Financial Supervisory Service of Korea could slow domestic growth in mobile payments, an official from the regulator confirmed. Under the new policy, all transactions initiated with advanced handsets would be subject to the same security requirements that control online transactions initiated with personal computers.

A small mobile-phone Near Field Communication payment trial is under way in Slovenia designed to test consumer use of MasterCard and Maestro contactless payments, Inside Contactless announced today.

LIVE OAK, Texas – Randolph-Brooks FCU will distribute $4.2 million to members who used their debit cards to make purchases last year, the $3.7 billion credit union announced.

Cardtronics Inc. Thursday reported fourth-quarter and yearend profits as cash withdrawals increased per ATM, suggesting consumers kept credit cards in their wallets and relied instead on using debit cards and cash, according to an executive at the Houston-based ATM independent sales organization.

With the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games set to begin Friday, Affinity Solutions Inc. this week announced a partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee that enables online shoppers to earn cash back through merchant-funded rewards. Participants also may donate funds to help athletes train and travel to the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

With consumers increasingly shifting spending to debit, Total System Services Inc. has developed a way to help credit issuers retain those transactions by combining both functions in one card.

Banks in India are considering issuing network-branded open-loop prepaid cards in the face of declining credit card transaction volumes, local newspaper Daily News & Analysis reports.

With the economy showing signs of recovery, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday gave more clues as to how the central bank will return to normal and made clear that financial institutions are central to his plans.

Growing debit and credit card use is affecting how often Texans carry cash, suggest the results of a survey by Swacha, a Dallas-based regional-payments association.