Credit

Banks in the Pacific Island nation of Fiji should invest in educating their customers on the use of ATMs and payment card terminals, the Consumer Council suggests in a May 5 report.

VeriFone Systems Inc., the nation's largest maker of point of sale terminals, is introducing a new one that could make it as easy for merchants to accept alternative payments as it is to take Visa or MasterCard.

PayNearMe Inc. has launched a bill-payment function for its cash payment system that works with bar codes printed on billers’ statements.

Socialwise Inc. is furthering its promotion of its BillMyParents alternative payment system through its partnership with skateboarding star Rob Dyrdek.

Hypercom Corp. reported Monday that it swung to a loss of nearly $3.5 million during the first quarter from a profit of $375,000 a year earlier.

PayPal Inc. could lose a substantial amount of transaction revenue if pending caps on debit interchange are applied to the alternative payments company, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets said in a research note Thursday.

As U.S. Bancorp upgrades its mobile banking offerings, it is also stepping up its use of mobile data business intelligence to target sales and personalize customer service.

The steady decline in credit card charge-offs that continued through the first quarter helped make issuers’ earnings look good, but that trend cannot continue forever, Fitch Ratings Inc. warned in a May 6 special report.

Debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA) last week reported record net income, cash collections and revenue in the first quarter ended March 31.

Despite a United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading investigation looking into the debit and credit card fees the country’s airlines charge, easyJet Airline Co. Ltd. continues to increase its debit card fees for flight bookings, PaymentsSource has learned.

With the economy improving, major credit card issuers once again are boosting their advertising spending to pre-recession levels. But with shifts in consumer spending, coupled with regulatory changes, issuers are focusing on different goals than before the economy collapsed.

Consumer demand for credit is rising just as credit card issuers are relaxing their lending criteria, making way for new opportunities in credit card marketing, according to Federal Reserve Board data cited in a Tower Group report “Business Strategies for Credit Card Issuers to Address New Regulation and Increase Profits” (see chart).

Consumer demand for credit is rising just as credit card issuers are relaxing their lending criteria, making way for new opportunities in credit card marketing, according to Federal Reserve Board data cited in a Tower Group report “Business Strategies for Credit Card Issuers to Address New Regulation and Increase Profits” (see chart).

Visa Inc. plans revisit its incentive agreements with issuing banks after the Federal Reserve Board finalizes its capped rate for debit card interchange this summer, executives for the card brand told analysts May 5 during a conference call to discuss fiscal second-quarter earnings.

U.S. merchants now may process magnetic stripe, e-commerce and EMV chip-and-PIN payments using Yespay International Ltd.’s cross-border payment service, the London-based company announced on May 4.

Both American Express Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their advertising expenditures earlier this year, a sign overall ad spending has begun to rise.

The Reserve Bank of India has increased the deposit limits for mobile wallets in that country to 50,000 rupees (US$1,112 or 762 euros) from 5,000 rupees previously, according to a notification it sent to all banks and operators on May 4.

The National Payments Corp. of India has received permission to expand the scope of its interbank mobile funds-transfer service to include payments, the authority announced May 5.

A new payment card allows users to see their balances right away with the technology they already have — no chips, fancy apps or even bookmarked mobile websites required.

Person-to-person payment is expected to be one of the big next deployments for mobile financial services, and ING Direct is an early adopter of the latest incarnation of the technology, becoming the first major financial institution to enable U.S. customers with iPhones to use them to send money to one another.