Credit

The number of open retail credit card accounts in the U.S. has reached heights not seen since the end of 2009.

Prospects for the Visa/MasterCard antitrust settlement received another jolt last week when the Retail Industry Leaders Association weighed in against the terms, joining other influential opponents of the landmark deal.

Small business owners in Europe certainly won't have a shortage of mobile payment options to choose from, as more companies enter the market locally and from the U.S.

Just as the plastic card liberated many consumers from a reliance on cash and coin, alternative payment sources are gaining enough adoption to steal transactions from plastic — with a little help from the very companies these digital currencies threaten.

Payments-industry rivals sometimes put their differences aside to achieve a common goal.

Live Gamer Inc. has typically provided virtual currency services to video game developers, but as Nevada prepares to let casinos take their high-stakes games online, the vendor is betting that its expertise will prove valuable when the games put real cash at stake.

Borrowers are paying down their card and loan debts. The big exception is student loans, according to new data published by Equifax.

All eyes have been on Square this month with its investment from Starbucks and its new pricing option, but Intuit says it still has an advantage in mobile payments that Square can't match.

Some experts question whether the United States can meet the deadlines the card brands have set for converting to the EMV chip-card standard from magnetic-stripe cards.

It was inevitable that Gen X consumers would overtake Baby Boomers as the generation most often using credit cards. But their habits may leave card brands unsure of how to develop products for even younger consumers in the future.

Fair Isaac spotted a spike in U.S. credit card fraud taking place online, by mail and over the telephone.

Securitized credit card charge-offs in July rose from the previous month, but the jump was due to one-time factors. Charge-offs should resume their downward trend this month and reach about 4% by the end of the year, according to Moody's Investor Service.

Nearly a third of acquirers surveyed still view mobile payments as a threat.

U.S. gasoline demand rose 1.9% last week as prices at the pump jumped to a 13-week high, according to data from MasterCard Inc.

American Express is most popular for mail-order purchases on the West Coast and in the Northeast; Discover is most popular in the Midwest. Litle & Co. learned these and other trends in an analysis of its processing data.

Bank of America has ceased selling all payment protection plans to credit card customers, killing off a business line targeted by regulators.

PayPal's point of sale mobile payment system combines over half a decade of initiatives — and a few notable setbacks along the way.

As a new partner for PayPal, an early partner for Isis and the first issuer to sign on to a new method of participating with Google Wallet, Discover Financial Services is establishing itself as a foundation for mobile payments initiatives.

PayPal next year will extend its reach through Discover Financial Services' network, enabling direct acceptance of the PayPal digital wallet at more than seven million U.S. merchants.

Visa is offering a new data encryption service that could compete with third-party security vendors' offerings. The service's launch also indicates the card brand's growing desire to push beyond the requirements of the Payment Card Industry data security standards.