Cards

First Data Corp. signed a three-year contract with an Egyptian ministry to manage a prepaid benefits smart card. The program initially will target monthly grocery purchases for 4.5 million families but eventually will expand to support other government benefits.

As the head of one of the nation's largest microlenders, Gina Harman is leading the charge to expand the availability of credit to underserved communities in this country.

DES MOINES, Iowa – With the pace of credit union mergers predicted to continue in 2010, TMG (The Members Group) has issued a white paper on card services management during a merger.

WASHINGTON – A recent survey commissioned by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and CUNA revealed that, while most consumers (61%) are aware there are new credit card protections, most (65%) don’t know they take effect later this month and don’t understand the specific protections Congress approved last year.

Visa Inc.’s announcement Monday that this summer it will expand its “No Signature Required” program for magnetic stripe card transactions less than $25 to the majority of merchants could create yet another setback for contactless-payment growth in the United States, some observers say.

Target Corp. customers now may store gift card data electronically and make payments at the point of sale using their mobile phones.

The Secure POS Vendor Alliance, an Atlanta-based trade organization representing point-of-sale terminal makers, says it is forming the Lab Network, a collection of research labs that would work on shared security matters.

Point-of-sale terminal maker XAC Automation Corp. will use advanced payment-data encryption technology from Voltage Security Inc. in its new devices, Voltage announced this week.

Big banks are starting to open the tech-spending spigot, but times are tight for their smaller peers.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., known as ANZ, is expanding its collaboration with Visa Inc. to offer Visa-branded debit cards to its customers in additional countries in the Asia/Pacific region starting this year, the card company announced in a recent statement. Visa and ANZ first begin working together to offer cards in Australia and New Zealand in 2005.

Financial companies, discovering that people who bank by phone don't always bank online, are changing how they look at mobile services.

Xerox Corp. said Monday it has completed its roughly $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., an outsourcer that, among other things, processes credit card applications for issuers.

Seeking to become independent from established United Kingdom banks, Ghana International Bank last week announced the availability of a MasterCard-branded debit card in the UK.

Processors, not independent sales organizations, likely will bear the brunt of a law that takes effect next January requiring acquirers to report merchant credit and debit card transactions to the Internal Revenue Service, says Henry Helgeson, co-CEO of Merchant Warehouse Inc., a Boston-based ISO.

Dozens of credit unions are walking away from the $60 million payment Visa issuers will get for the costs they incurred for the massive credit card breach at Heartland Payments System.

First Bank & Trust of Brookings, S.D., today announced it is issuing a decoupled, affinity debit card for In Defense of Animals, a nonprofit animal-rights group. Tempo Payments Inc. will process the card’s transactions on its payments platform.

Another member of New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit Union pleaded guilty this week to stealing cash from the credit union’s ATM after electric outages caused by the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina forced the credit union to go offline with its cash machines.

In today’s economy, merchants still want to know how much credit and debit card processing is going to cost, but independent sales organizations say price is only one part of the sales pitch. Listening to what the merchant says it needs can be equally as important in securing the deal.

Four defense credit unions and State Employees’ CU have joined to offer surcharge-free ATMs to North Carolina National Guard personnel worldwide.

Electronic-payment services provider Network for Electronic Transfers (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., known as NETS, has launched a mobile-payment option for its cashless-payment service iNETS, according to a company statement. The service will enable consumers in Singapore to pay bills, make purchases and book tickets using their mobile phones.