Cards

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The regulatory crackdown on refund-anticipation loans is poised to redistribute market share from one tax preparer and its bank partner to their rivals.

Many European prepaid card users are more affluent than are those who commonly use prepaid cards in the U.S., the results of a First Data Corp. survey recently revealed, but at least one card brand has discussed a way to change that.

Gemalto NV said Wednesday it will set aside between 6 million euros (US$8.7 million) and 10 million euros to “cover the potential consequences related” to an apparent programming glitch that left millions of German payment cards useless earlier this month (see story).

The difference between Mophie LLC’s payment card reader for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and similar products competitors have debuted is that Mophie’s Marketplace product will work with any merchant account, according to the Paw Paw, Mich.-based provider of technology accessory products such as smartphone batteries. Retailers can set up a merchant account through Mophie or use an existing account, and “this is the main difference between the Marketplace and competitors,” says a company spokesperson.

American Express Co. Jan. 13 officially released a gift card to commemorate the Chinese New Year, which begins Feb. 14. AmEx originally announced the card in October when it eliminated monthly fees on all its gift cards (see story).

Total System Services Inc. plans to use mobile phones to gain a larger foothold in micropayments, Ashim Banerjee, the U.S.-based transaction processor’s chief information officer for TSYS Acquiring Solutions, tells PaymentsSource.

At least 22 million adults in the United Kingdom, or 53% of the country’s 41.4 million regular Internet users, banked online in 2009, according to Financial Fraud Action UK, a trade group for the payments industry. Last year represented the first time the percentage of UK online-banking users exceeded 50% of regular Internet users, the trade group said Tuesday.

Inside Contactless is working with another France-based contactless-technology firm to develop kiosks and electronic wallets that use Near Field Communication, an Inside spokesperson tells PaymentsSource.

Wells Fargo & Co. is offering PIN-debit capability for the RebelCard student identification card provided to students and faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The added function is one of two financial enhancements to the card resulting from a partnership announced Monday between the San Francisco-based bank and the school.

Coca-Cola Bottling Co. plans to deploy vending machines that accept Visa payWave cards in the Olympic Village during the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games that open Feb. 12 in Vancouver British Columbia, giving contactless payment a worldwide stage to display its capabilities.

A partnership Moneris Solutions Corp. formed recently with DimpleDough Inc. to resell DimpleDough’s online card-customization technology to Canadian retailers takes advantage of the growing popularity of personalizing closed-loop prepaid cards and sending them as gifts to friends, relatives and business associates, observers say.

MasterCard Worldwide today announced the availability of a merchant data service called MasterCard Advisors Merchant Solutions.

Total online transactions and spending volume in the U.S. rose again during the recent holiday shopping season compared with a year earlier, while the average transaction amount fell for the second consecutive year, according to new data Chase Paymentech released Jan. 12.

European consumers are using prepaid cards for a variety of purposes, including budgeting, creating an opportunity for prepaid marketers to expand their presence in certain countries, First Data says results of a recent survey it conducted suggest.

The results of a pilot Discover Financial Services recently completed of its Zip contactless-payment sticker suggest consumers are eager to use contactless stickers for routine payments as a bridge before Near Field Communication-equipped mobile handsets are available on a mass scale, Discover says.

Beaverton, Ore.-based First Tech Credit Union is warning its members of a new malicious banking application it discovered that apparently is designed to steal online banking account details on Google's new Android cellphones.

U.S. Bancorp's merchant acquiring unit, Elavon, has started a hosted payment gateway it calls Fusebox.

Gemalto has increased its capital investment to become the majority shareholder in mobile-payments firm Netsize, the company announced Tuesday. Amstercam-based Gemalto has an option to buy the company at a later date, but it did not disclose terms of the transaction.

Tax-time loans, already an embattled product, now face even more regulatory scrutiny — and not just from the traditional banking agencies.