Credit

Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s merchant clients could save up to $2,000 annually as a result of pending limits on debit card interchange fees, an executive at the processing company said June 16.

Intuit Inc. is among various vendors that could feel a shock from the emergence of Near Field Communication-powered mobile-payment schemes such as Google Wallet and Isis designed to eclipse banks’ existing, more-pedestrian offerings, such as online and mobile bank-account management.

Citigroup Inc. on June 15 clarified the timeline and updated the number of accounts breached in a recent hacker attack that put an estimated 1% of its North American Citi-branded credit card base at risk.

Lawyers for Minnesota’s TCF Bank will tell a federal appeals court in St. Louis this morning that the Fed’s proposed cap on debit fees amounts to an unconstitutional “taking” of its assets, in a last-ditch effort by banks and credit unions to block the Fed’s final rule.

A member of the Senate Banking Committee is calling for an investigation into a data breach at Citigroup.

Visa and MasterCard have developed services for merchants to determine which cards cost more to accept — rekindling the debate over whether small banks will suffer under the Durbin amendment.

First Data Corp. is working with mobile news network operator LSN Mobile Inc. to provide a mobile advertising and coupon system for merchants, the companies announced June 15.

Diamond Bank PLC has launched a credit card in collaboration with supermarket operator Park ‘N’ Shop in Nigeria, claiming it to be the country’s first cobranded credit card.

Card brands are making more concerted efforts to move from just having a presence on social-media networks to actually engaging customer behavior. And MasterCard Worldwide is next up.

The emerging U.S. mobile-payments market could be putting consumers at risk for fraud, and a consumer-advocacy group is urging wireless carriers to protect its customers from unauthorized transactions.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions has changed its name to Vantiv LLC, the company announced June 15.

Credit unions and banks are once again struggling to plug a data breach that is siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from debit cards through purchases at local retailers.

Merchant groups say a U.S. Justice Department settlement does not go far enough to prevent Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide from engaging in anti-competitive practices.

The Department of Justice filed papers yesterday to implement the settlement of its antitrust suit against Visa and MasterCard, which will prevent the two card networks from barring merchants from steering transactions to lower-cost cards.

When Congress threatened to cap the interchange fees that banks collect on debit card transactions, the industry argued that such a move would force it to kill off its own debit rewards programs. As it turns out, the demise of those programs might inconvenience consumers but it is unlikely to deal banks much of a financial blow.

Starbucks Corp. finally has an official mobile payment offering for Android smartphones.

U.S. Senators. Charles Schumer , D-N.Y., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are urging the U.S. Department of Justice Department to shut down an underground online drug-trade site called Silk Road, but in a June 6 open letter to the department the senators barely touched on the digital currency–Bitcoins–that fuels the site’s commerce.

Verizon Wireless has brick-and-mortar mobile payments covered thanks to its participation in the Isis joint venture. But the company soon will give its wireless customers the option to charge online purchases directly to their mobile-phone bill.

The plethora of new mobile payment initiatives – the most recent being the mobile wallet project announced by Google, Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint – can be confusing for banks. What mobile payment technologies make the most sense for a financial institution to offer? In a recent interview with Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, he handicapped the three versions of near-field communication mobile payment technology that standards bodies have approved. [Near-field communication is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that enables short-range communication between electronic devices, and it’s the mechanism most companies are choosing to pursue mobile payments.] The differences between the three versions hinge on who controls the security of the mobile payments by controlling the “secure element” that stores cardholder credentials and account data and communicates with the apps.

Effective July 1, retailers in the United Arab Emirates no longer may assess surcharges to customers who pay by credit card under a ruling last week from the country’s Supreme Committee for Consumer Protection.