Credit

It may not take long for a mobile phone carrier to start looking and acting like a bank for consumers seeking to use their phones to make payments or borrow money.

Mobile wallets promise simpler payments, but the road to get there has been bumpy and, quite often, bizarre.

Teaming up with PayPal is consistent with other Discover Financial Services agreements that stress the card brand’s payments strategy of being “the most flexible partner for a number of other players,” Discover Chairman and CEO David Nelms says.

The telecommunications companies behind the Isis mobile wallet joint venture have had Salt Lake City in their sights as a testing ground for the past year. But recent delays in the Isis rollout have opened the door for direct competitor Google Wallet to continue to gain as much momentum as possible with its mobile pay system.

The date for U.S. merchants to start benefiting from preparing early for EMV smart card technology at the point of sale lurks next week. Unfortunately, the future of payments technology won’t come into clearer focus for merchants that quickly.

A provision within the hotly contested settlement between merchants and credit card networks could potentially slow PayPal’s bid to become more widely accepted at grocery stores, restaurants and other retailers.

New players are disrupting the established order and taking market share from independent sales organizations. This rapid pace of change in payments may drive many ISOs out of business, speakers said at an industry event.

Bankers “wake up in the middle of the night” worrying about data breaches in the U.S. payment system, a Citigroup executive said this week.

Spire Payments will partner with technology investor Newland Computers in developing future products and rolling out a new line of point-of-sale terminals.

Discover Financial Services (DFS) earned $621 million for its third quarter ended August 31, 2012, up 3% from the same period year earlier, the company said Thursday.

Credit card indicators are looking good, with August numbers showing charge-offs decreasing for most asset-backed securities trusts.

Barclaycard U.S. has hired a new chief financial officer and chief marketing officer to its executive team.

The advancement of mobile payment technology and how it correlates to the EMV conversion timelines in the U.S. was one of many topics attendees discussed at the first EMV Migration Forum meeting in mid-September.

The Coopera prepaid Visa card was ranked the fifth most affordable prepaid card by online financial planning website NerdWallet.

Sen. Dick Durbin, who led the effort to cap debit interchange fees last year, responded to the banking and credit union lobbies’ letters to Congress last week, saying the cap has resulted in a victory for consumers.

A study guide has just been released as a companion to a recent hardcover book aimed at the acquiring industry.

The operators of a Philadelphia-based telemarketing scheme will pay more than $7.5 million to settle FTC charges that they peddled bogus credit cards and illegally debited consumers’ bank accounts.

As the new iPhone 5 gets into consumers’ hands, so too does Apple’s new limited mobile wallet app, Passbook, a single platform for storing movie tickets, boarding passes, gift cards and retail coupons.

Scotiabank in Canada has started issuing cards on the American Express network, the companies said on Monday.

MasterCard may be bracing for slower revenue growth, but its head of international markets still sees cause for optimism abroad.