Credit

Freedom Debt Relief, a debt-settlement agency based in San Mateo, Calif., will pay $1.1 million to refund more than 5,000 New York residents who were misled about the amount of money they would save, according to New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman's office.

The number of personal bankruptcy filings in February rose to 102,686, up 11% from January but down 8% from a year earlier, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute and the National Bankruptcy Research Center.

China UnionPay has signed an acceptance agreement with US-based Citibank that will see UnionPay cards being accepted in seven other Asian nations, a spokesperson for China’s bankcard association confirms PaymentsSource.

American Express Co.’s plans to test an application program interface that connects its cardholders with social media giant Foursquare Labs Inc. creates a “powerful combination of digital behavior and spending behavior,” David Wolf, AmEx vice president of global marketing capabilities, tells PaymentsSource.

U.S. consumer credit card defaults declined again in January, reaching their lowest levels in more than two years as the economy gradually stabilized and more consumers were able to meet their payment obligations, according to new data from Fitch Ratings Inc. and Standard & Poor’s.

Post Office Ltd. is offering to cover the cost of return flights to six European cities to consumers who open a Post Office Credit Card by March 27, the subsidiary of London-based Royal Mail Group Ltd. announced March. 9.

Continued global expansion of EMV smart card programs helped drive revenue and profit growth last year for Gemalto NV’s Secure Transactions unit, which includes banking cards, the France-based smart card vendor announced March 11.

Seven Bank Ltd. has signed an agreement with U.S.-based The Western Union Co. to offer Western Union’s funds-transfer services in Japan.

WASHINGTON – Senator Dick Durbin insisted yesterday he will fight every effort to delay the pending implementation of his initiative to lower interchange fees paid to credit unions and banks.

WASHINGTON — In a rare show of unity, the leading bank and credit union industry groups filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief on Friday to support TCF Financial Corp.'s lawsuit against implementation of a rule that would limit interchange fees on debit cards.

WASHINGTON — Bankers and other financial executives continued their full-court press to delay pending restrictions on debit interchange fees, even as lawmakers prepared to move forward on plans to delay the new requirements.

As the health care industry eyes new systems to streamline and improve the collection of payments from patients, New York-based Phreesia Inc. is promoting a tablet-like device that records patients’ personal and insurance information and doubles as a card-payment terminal.

A year after testing mobile capabilities with its customers, Wow Bao, an Asian restaurant with three Chicago locations, is planning to launch a mobile gift card program with Mocapay Inc. by the end of April, PaymentsSource has learned.

The ongoing fight between Square Inc. and rival VeriFone Systems Inc. around payment security highlights the lack of common technical standards for mobile acceptance devices.

Capital One Financial Corp. hopes to grab market share from other rewards-based credit cards with an unprecedented miles-match promotion whose timing may be strategically calculated to take advantage of turmoil surrounding proposed new debit card regulations, one analyst contends.

For the 11th consecutive year, identity theft topped the Federal Trade Commission’s annual list of consumer complaints. Credit cards ranked 10th in 2010, according to the FTC, which released the list March 8.

With online orders on the increase, Domino’s Pizza Group Ltd. in the United Kingdom has decided to add PayPal Inc. as a payment method, the global pizza chain announced March 7.

CHS Inc., a diversified energy, grains and food company, plans to use Comdata Corp.’s Smart Solutions point-of-sale systems at its 1,400 convenience stores nationwide that operate under the Cenex brand, the companies announced March 10.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Public Interest Group, the leading consumer lobby in Congress, called on the Fed to maintain course and reduce fees on debit transactions while opening the cards market to greater competition.

Tanla Solutions Ltd. has launched a set of programming tools to allow micropayments within smartphone applications.