Cards

Western Union Co., the world's biggest money-transfer business, has reported that its fourth-quarter profit fell, and it forecast little or no revenue growth for 2010.

Diebold Inc. Wednesday announced a restructuring of its North American operations as ATM sales to regional banks remained flat, contributing to dramatic drops in revenue for the fourth quarter and for all of last year.

Card readers that attach to mobile phones suddenly have become a hot industry topic, and HomeATM ePayment Solutions is about to throw its own device into the mix, PaymentsSource has learned.

American Payment Systems increased compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard among its roughly 1,200 merchant clients to 48% currently from roughly 10% Oct. 1 with a phone-call campaign, according to the Omaha, Neb.-based independent sales organization.

A member of New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit Union pleaded guilty to stealing $3,400 from the credit union after electric outages caused by 2005's Hurricane Katrina forced the credit union to go offline with its ATM services.

Last year, 45 credit unions joined Credit Union 24 Inc., the nation’s largest credit union-owned point of sale and surcharge-free ATM network. The credit unions, located in 19 states in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and Northwest, represent $4.9 billion in assets and 620,000 members, CU 24 executives said in a statement.

State Bank of India has launched a network-branded prepaid card in Hyderabad, India, an official from the Mumbai-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

Gemalto NV said Tuesday that it would provide chip cards to BNP Paribas SA in France and Belgium, expanding an existing relationship.

U.S. Bancorp's merchant acquiring operations are getting into Mexico on the ground floor.

Watch for healthier credit and debit sales volumes when Visa Inc. tomorrow reports its most recent quarterly data, with MasterCard to follow on Thursday, one analyst says.

Some payments organizations want the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to clarify aspects of a law that takes effect next January requiring acquirers to report merchant credit and debit card transactions to the IRS, and they want penalty fees mitigated in the early stages of enforcement, according to comments submitted to the government agencies.

JetPay LLC, a Carrollton, Texas-based payment processor, says it has won a trademark-infringement issue involving its Web site address, www.jetpay.com.

Payment Alliance International has acquired the ATM-processing business of WRG Services Inc., a Willoughby, Ohio-based ATM independent sales organization, Louisville, Ky.-based Payment Alliance announced Monday.

Debit card customers of Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd. face paying a 3 taka fee (43 U.S. cents or 31 euro cents) for taking a transaction receipt at the bank’s ATMs under a new policy that took effect last month, an official from the Bangladesh-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

Not all marketing tactics merchant-service providers use are equally effective at piquing merchants’ interest, some observers note. Independent sales organizations often go through multiple marketing techniques to determine which ones are less effective.

Smart Communications Inc. has signed a mobile-payments deal with Central Negros Electric Cooperative Inc., the Philippines-based company announced on Jan. 31.

Visa Inc. is making a big Olympic advertising push at the Grand Central Terminal in New York. The company today announced the launch of a month-long campaign at the train station featuring three-dimensional video and static images in the station’s subway corridor using its “Go World” theme focusing on Olympic achievement.

Texas consumers wrote fewer checks for purchases in 2009 compared with the previous year, reaching instead for their debit or credit cards, according to survey results released by Swacha, a not-for-profit regional payments association.

VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s Payware Mobile payment software for Apple Inc.’s iPhone is now available from Apple’s iTunes store, the San Jose, Calif.-based terminal maker says.

State Bank of India plans to issue 3 million biometric cards this year as it works to comply with an Indian government mandate to bring financial services to more unbanked consumers, an official from the alternate channels department at the Mumbai-based bank tells PaymentsSource.