Cards

NCR Corp.’s hiring yesterday of Richard Bravman as its first chief marketing officer offers more evidence that the company is transitioning from its traditional role as an ATM manufacturer to a technology company involved in a wide-ranging line of businesses.

Consumers in the Midwest initiated 10.8% more transactions from Dec. 1 to 14 than during the same period in 2008, according to a First Data Corp. SpendTrend 2009 Holiday Special Edition report. The report is based on credit, debit and electronic benefits transfer transactions First Data processed for its merchant customers. The Atlanta-based payment processor says the Midwest also led U.S. regions in sales-volume growth at 9.3%. First Data did not provide specific transaction or spend totals. Transaction volume in New England grew by 8.5% to rank second, though the region had the fourth-largest sales-volume growth at 6.5%. Transaction volume grew by 8.4% in the Mid-Atlantic region, while sales volume increased by 6.9%. In the South, transaction volume grew 7.5%, while sales volume grew by 6.4%. Consumers in the West conducted 7.2% more transactions and spent 6.6% more. Transaction volume in the Southwest grew 5.7%, while sales volume rose 5.8%, First Data says. The payment processor says transaction volume at value merchants, defined as discount merchants such as Walmart Stores Inc., grew by 14.9%, while sales rose 13.5%. Petroleum-sales volume outpaced all other merchant categories with a 43.7% increase, while transaction volume rose 13.5%. The data illustrate that consumers remained focused on value, which resulted in the large transaction volume increases in petroleum transactions and among value merchants, according to First Data. First Data representatives were not available for additional comment.

Consumers in the Southeast region of England are more likely to have plastic payment cards than are consumers in other parts of the country, suggest survey data from the UK Payments Council, a trade group that helps set strategy for payments in the United Kingdom. The council based its findings on surveys of 3,859 adult consumers it conducted earlier this year. Ninety-seven percent of respondents from the Southeast reported having payment cards, while only 86% of respondents from West Midlands region said they did, making that region the lowest in England for plastic card ownership, the council says in a statement. Fifty-nine percent of consumers on the Southeast reported using mobile or Internet banking, the highest rate among England’s regions, while only 46% of consumers in the Northeast did, the lowest rate. Consumers in East Anglia make the fewest ATM withdrawals–51 per person each year, the council says. In general, more consumers in the southern parts of England have payment cards than do consumers in the northern parts, the council adds.

Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. has launched what it says is a major ATM-deployment initiative in Bangladesh, a spokesperson for the financial institution says. The effort involves the deployment of 100 ATMs, including one machine installed this week in Dhaka, the country’s capital, the spokesperson says, who declined to name who manufactured the ATMs. The bank provides cash-withdrawal services to customers through a network of 34 ATMs shared with six other financial institutions, the spokesperson says. “Even after we set up our own ATMs, our customers will still be able to use the shared ATMs, the number of which we are looking to increase,” says the spokesperson. “In addition, we are going to be connected to the international Visa network soon.” The bank plans to complete the deployments by next December, the spokesperson says.

Indusind Bank Ltd. has deployed its first solar-powered ATM, a spokesperson for the Mumbai-based financial institution says. The bank plans to deploy similar machines across India, but the spokesperson would not say how many or when. The ATM deployments fall under the bank’s “Green Office” campaign, the spokesperson says. The solar-powered machines, made in collaboration with with Mumbai-based Centre for Environmental Research and Education, are designed to use energy from the sun for eight hours per day, and they can store unused solar energy, the spokesperson says.

Residents of the Asia-Pacific region cite changes in salaries, job security and cost-of-living expenses as their top financial concerns entering 2010, the results of a recent Visa Inc. survey suggest. Of the 5,520 survey respondents across 10 nations, 48% cited changes in the cost of living as their top concern, while 44% cited increasing their savings and the same percentage cited job security as potential troubles in 2010. Within the region, however, differences emerge. In China, respondents cited payment card fraud, increasing savings and job security as their top three concerns. Hong Kong residents said they expect changes in their salaries, job security and cost-of-living expenses to cause them worry in 2010. In Taiwan, the value of consumer retirement funds, changes in salaries and job security ranked as the top three concerns for next year. Among respondents in Japan, the top concerns were increasing savings, changes in salaries and cost-of-living expenses. Visa did not provide individual nation results. The survey, conducted in August and September, also canvassed consumers in Australia, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand.

Consumers worldwide cannot account for approximately 20% of their weekly cash spending, according to survey data Visa Inc. released today. Ipsos Group’s Ipsos Mori, a United Kingdom-based market-research company, in September conducted the telephone survey of 12,103 adults in 12 global markets on Visa’s behalf. Australians ranked highest in losing track of their cash, reporting they cannot account for an average of $US59 of spending weekly, followed by individuals from Persian Gulf-region Arab states ($42), Russia ($35), Canada ($26) and the United States ($21). The Japanese appear to be least guilty of losing track of their money. While Japan ranks fourth among the 12 regions in terms of average cash spending, at $166 weekly, Japanese consumers on average can account for all but $11 spent each week, the survey found. The only countries where consumers keep better track their cash expenditures is India, where consumers report losing track of $8 weekly on average, and Korea, at $10 weekly. U.S. consumers spend the most cash weekly on average ($228), followed by Australia ($176) and Canada ($167). Spotlighting cash-handling habits among U.S. consumers, Visa’s survey data suggest that younger adults between the ages of 18 and 24 claim to lose track of $2,500 annually on average, more that twice the average U.S. adults lose. Missing cash is most likely going toward purchasing food and other groceries, cited by 34% of respondents; buying nonessentials, 32%; enjoying a night on the town, 31%; and dining out, 26%. Some 37% of respondents listed debit cards as their primary payment method for personal and household expenses, followed by 22% who listed cash, 20% who cited personal checks and 16% who noted credit cards. Five percent were not sure. Some 68% of survey respondents said they prefer using their debit cards whenever possible for routine payments versus paying with cash. Some 61% of those surveyed said using a debit card helps to track and control everyday spending.

With its announcement today of the new Disney Rewards Visa Debit Card, which carries a $25 annual fee, JPMorgan Chase & Co. appears to be expanding its rewards-at-a-price strategy for cardholders. And the new card’s terms also suggest the issuer is determined to continue pushing consumers toward signature debit, which tends to reap higher interchange revenue compared with PIN-debit purchases.

A late flurry of holiday shopping this week should help boost fourth-quarter gift card sales compared with the same period last year, according to a report from Mercator Advisory Group.

Merchants processing from 1 million to 6 million MasterCard transactions no longer have to meet a Dec. 31, 2010, deadline to have a third-party security assessor perform an onsite assessment of their payment networks for compliance with Payment Card Industry data security standards unless they want to do so voluntarily, according to a MasterCard spokesperson. This is a reversal from a policy MasterCard contained in an Aug. 17 Site Data Protection program document that would have required such so-called Level 2 merchants to pay for a qualified security assessor to audit their compliance by Dec. 31, 2010. Now MasterCard has moved the compliance deadline to June 30, 2011, and made the onsite assessment optional. Level 2 merchants will be required annually to complete a self-assessment questionnaire and perform quarterly network-security scans of their systems. Merchant employees completing the self-assessments must have completed Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council training and pass the council’s accreditation program, according to a MasterCard Dec. 15 Global Security Bulletin. The Aug. 17 summary of changes to MasterCard’s Site Data Protection program said the earlier change was designed to aid the “consistent application and implementation of [data security-standard] requirements.”

Monitise PLC, the British mobile banking vendor, says it plans a broader push next year into mobile retailing, initially in the United Kingdom, then across Europe and in the United States.

MoneyGram International Inc. said Monday that it is working with Smart Communications Inc., a unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., to launch a mobile phone money transfer service in the Philippines, reports American Banker. MoneyGram agents in San Diego and Hong Kong are testing the service starting this week. Consumers in those locations can visit agents to send money to people in the Philippines that have a Smart Money account on their mobile phones. MoneyGram, of Minneapolis, separately has more than 7,000 locations in the Philippines and allows users there to receive payments in U.S. dollars. "This partnership gives MoneyGram access to more than 39 million Smart subscribers in the Philippines and extends the benefits of our safe and reliable money transfer services to a new category of consumers," John Hempsey, executive vice president for MoneyGram's Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions, said in a press release Monday.

Steven A. Rathgaber, who will become the new CEO of Cardtronics Inc. Feb. 1 (see story), will receive a $200,000 one-time signing bonus to lead the world’s largest ATM independent sales organization, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Vesta Corp., a Portland, Ore.-based prepaid technology provider, Monday announced that NetSpend Corp. will use its online reload service for prepaid cards. The service enables NetSpend cardholders to load up to $250 using a debit card.

HSBC Merchant Services, a United Kingdom-based subsidiary of Atlanta-based Global Payments Inc., announced today that the BHF-BSSA Group Trade Association will refer its 7,000 small and midsize independent retailers to HSBC for their payment card processing. The British Shops & Stores Association, a 3,300-member group that merged in September with the 3,700-member British Hardware Federation to form the trade group, previously had referred its members to HSBC Merchant Services. The UK-based trade group says on its Web site that merchants using HSBC Merchant Services will get a processing rate of 1.195%. Merchants that switch to HSBC Merchant Services also receive three months of free payment terminal rental, according to the trade group.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is strongly advising banks in the Philippines to conduct ATM maintenance late at night or before dawn, according to an official from the central bank. Government officials do not want the machines to be unavailable during the busy holiday season while consumers are shopping, according to the official, noting the central bank expects higher than average cash withdrawals during the holidays. “The central bank will coordinate with the banks where necessary to make sure that routine maintenance is undertaken during off hours,” he adds. The central bank also advised financial institutions to keep their ATMs well stocked to avoid cash shortages.

Australian consumers continue to increasingly embrace debit cards, while credit card activity remains flat. Consumers made 177.2 million debit card transactions in October, up 15.2% from 153.8 million a year earlier, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. Debit card sales volume increased 12%, to AU$12.1 billion (US$10.6 billion or 7.4 billion euros) from AU$10.8 billion. Credit and charge card holders made 127.3 million transactions in October, up 1.2% from the 125.8 million during the same month last year. Sales volume on those cards fell 1.5%, to AU$19.1 billion from AU$19.4 billion. Consumers in October repaid AU$19.6 billion in card debt, down 1% from AU$19.8 billion a year ago. Australia has at least 14.4 million credit cardholders and 31.2 million debit cardholders, the central bank says.

Cardtronics Inc. today named Steven A. Rathgaber as its new CEO, replacing Jack M. Antonini, who left the Houston-based company in March.

Driven in large part by the increasing popularity of card payments, a banking trade group in the United Kingdom has voted to abolish central check clearing on 31 Oct. 2018, which essentially would kill off checks as a means of mainstream payment. “Central check clearing is the system that allows all the bits of paper to be exchanged around the country,” says a spokesperson for the UK Payments Council, the group that organized last week’s vote. “It’s a possibility that some checks may still be used, but our aim is that by 2018 there will be no need for any users to have to rely on checks for making any of their payments.” The group includes 25 members. The group’s board, which did the vote, includes 11 representatives from the banking industry, four independent directors and a chairman. Vote details were not released. Check use is in “long-term, terminal decline,” the council said in a statement. Only £7.1 billion (US$11.4 billion or 7.9 billion euros), or 3% of retail spending, involved the use of checks, a 4.1% decline from 2007, the latest full-year figures from the UK’s Association for Payment Clearing Services show. UK consumers wrote 711 million checks in 2008, down 47.3% from 1.35 billion in 2003, according to the Cheque and Credit Clearing Co., a British industry group that manages the country's check-clearing system. In a report that accompanied the vote to end check clearing, the UK Payments Council noted that “the strongest influence on the decline has been the decisions by many merchants to no longer accept personal checks. The other sector seeing the most-rapid decline was personal bill payment, where continued migration to electronic payment methods has cut the proportion of all personal regular bills paid by check from 16% to 8% between 2003 and 2008.” Meanwhile, UK consumers continue to increase their use of payment cards, initiating 2.01 billion debit and credit card purchases during the third quarter ended 30 Sept., up 6.9% from 1.88 billion during the same period last year, according to the UK Cards Association, a trade group that works with the Payments Council. Purchases using payment cards totaled 97.5 billion pound during the quarter, up 4.4% from 93.4 billion pounds a year earlier, the group says. Debit cards accounted for 75% of UK plastic card purchases during the quarter, the group adds. The Payments Council, which plans to promote “alternative” payment forms, including prepaid cards, direct debits, “virtual” vouchers and payments made using mobile phones, says it will review check use in 2016 before making a final decision to end the clearing system. “The [council] will be especially concerned that the needs of elderly and vulnerable people are met,” the trade group said in a statement, noting for now consumers are unlikely to see any immediate changes. Check use also is declining rapidly in the United States. Though Federal Reserve banks have eliminated all but one clearing facility, in Cleveland, the Fed has no plans to do away with paper checks altogether.

The Harley-Davidson Motor Co. last week introduced a proprietary gift card redeemable at its 750 retail locations.