Credit

The Central Bank of Afghanistan on April 25 granted the country’s first Electronic Money Institution license to M-Paisa, the first mobile funds-transfer service to operate in the country.

CHICAGO–A day after the Wall Street Journal reported Isis was changing its business model by working with other established payments organizations, an executive for the organization told a panel here at the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference nothing had changed.

CHICAGO—Further delay in U.S. migration to EMV chip-and-PIN technology might be another unintended consequence if the Federal Reserve Board’s proposed 12-cent cap on debit card interchange is enforced, two analysts agreed during a panel discussion here May 4 at the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference.

A nearly 68% boost in corporate card purchase volume helped Fleet card provider and processor Wright Express Corp. to report more than a 40% increase in first quarter revenue, Michael Dubyak, chairman, president and CEO, tells PaymentsSource.

For all the talk about the upcoming NFC-driven mobile payments revolution at the point of sale, new research from Oracle is throwing some cold water on the hype.

Visa Inc. is likely to report positive second-quarter earnings Thursday afternoon, an analyst said.

Debit card issuers’ pain could be a gain for some payments processors.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is adding merchant accounts and is processing more transactions for its established merchants, thanks to a well-honed sales effort and a healthier economy.

Citing convenience and low interest rates, many credit cardholders prefer to leave a balance on one or more credit cards and accept revolving as a way of life, and this is helping issuers to generate more interest income, new research suggests.

UC Mobile Corp. has entered China’s mobile-payments market in partnership with Alipay, the country’s largest independent online-payment platform based on transaction volume, the company announced April 21.

CHICAGO—At least one industry observer believes increasing contactless-payment adoption could help the United States to migrate to EMV chip-and-PIN technology and eventually to widespread mobile payments.

Strong processing volume among small and midsize merchants and growth in noncard operations contributed to an 13.7% increase in Heartland Payment Systems Inc. first-quarter total revenue, to $467.7 million from $411.2 million during the same period last year. Net income was down 44.4%, to $7.9 million from $14.2 million.

The payments processor Total System Services Inc. said Tuesday that its board has approved increasing the number of shares it can repurchase under its existing plan to 15 million from 10 million.

WorldPay, the payments processor formerly owned by Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, said Tuesday that it has agreed to acquire Envoy Services Ltd., a London company that provides e-commerce payment services.

An increase in transaction volume at its merchants and higher debit network fees from its bank clients helped payments processor First Data Corp. increase its quarterly revenue by 6% from a year earlier to $2.5 billion.

Borrowing on credit cards is close to bottoming out, according to lenders, but the nation's biggest players have had to cede market share during the sharpest contraction in the industry's history. Now they are increasingly fighting for the same kinds of customers.

The fraud management provider Memento Inc. announced April 28 that Bremer Financial Corp.’s Bremer Bank has agreed to use its technology.

A Pennsylvania woman filed a federal lawsuit April 20 against Target Corp. and its law firm over the department store’s collection practices, claiming false affidavits were used to go after customers who allegedly owed money to a subsidiary bank that issues the store’s credit cards.

Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Co. soon will enable consumers to pay their electricity bills though their mobiles phones.

Citibank announced it is hiring up to 1,400 debt collectors in Indonesia after the country's central bank found irregularities in the bank’s collection practices handled by third-party collectors.