Credit

Fiserv Inc. plans to begin delivering electronic statements through bank and credit union websites for Discover Financial Services card accounts, the processor announced Feb. 22.

Adding more benefits to its fee-based cards, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has eliminated the foreign-transaction fee on its Continental Airlines Presidential Plus MasterCard credit card, giving cardholders a break on the 3% transaction fee, the company announced earlier this month.

Security Card Services LLC’s decision to renew its processing contract with National Processing Co. stems partially from a degree of comfort the companies have amassed in their 14-year history of working together, according to John Lewis, the independent sales organization’s president.

WASHINGTON — A year after the credit card reform law was enacted, Elizabeth Warren, the administration's official in charge with setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the industry has improved its practices and warned against over regulation of the card market.

Independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers using Panoptic Security Inc.’s payment-security service now have another tool to view their merchants’ security-compliance efforts–MyPCIDashboard, a service Panoptic announced Feb. 22.

U.S. credit card delinquencies fell about 32% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, according to TransUnion LLC.

Intuit Inc. is furthering its strategy to become a go-to provider to small businesses for their payment needs.

In the six years that Citibank has offered its Thank You Rewards program, nearly 11 million checking and credit-card customers have signed up to earn points through just about every interaction they have with the bank. Making a debit or credit purchase or opening a money market account rings up points that Thank You members can use to get a new flat-screen television or a trip to Tahiti.

The United Arab Emirates is planning a series of enforceable regulations that will put more teeth into prohibitions against merchants assessing surcharges on credit card purchases.

In a new twist on credit card rewards, TD Bank is going after cardholders who carry balances and make on-time payments. At the other end of the spectrum, Capital One Financial Corp. also has a new card rewarding students for making on-time payments, as long as they stay within strict credit limits.

Hypercom Corp.’s preview of its fourth-quarter earnings Feb. 16 raised fears about the viability of VeriFone Systems Inc.’s plans to acquire its competitor in the second half of the year.

A glance at fraud statistics would seem to yield an obvious answer: the United States needs to catch up with the rest of the world and upgrade old-school magnetic stripe cards to modern chip and PIN models.

Euronet Worldwide Inc.’s EFT Processing and epay segments reported strong fourth-quarter transaction growth. However, the gains did not translate into increased revenue for the units.

Mobile-network operators NTT Docomo Inc. of Japan and KT Corp. of South Korea have inked a deal to support Near Field Communication payments for smartphones in the two countries that use Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

The Australian capital territory of Canberra plans to roll out the MyWay smart card ticketing system on its Action bus service starting Feb. 21, a spokesperson at the bus operator tells PaymentsSource.

Financial institutions and consumers will be able to more quickly detect and respond to fraudulent transactions and suspicious bank-account activity using a mobile-based fraud-management service ClairMail Inc. has developed, the San Rafael, Calif.-based company announced Feb. 17.

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke expressed doubt this morning on the workability of exemptions for credit unions and small banks from the debit interchange price controls required under the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act.

In a warm-up for tomorrow’s Capitol Hill hearing on the Federal Reserve Board’s proposed debit-interchange rules, merchants’ representatives during a press conference today said that unless the rules are left unchanged, merchants might be forced to lay off employees.

Better-than-expected merchant reaction to Intuit Inc.’s offer of free card readers and no monthly service fees to small merchants using its GoPayment mobile-payments service has prompted the company to extend the offer indefinitely, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company announced Feb. 16.

Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc. posted record fourth-quarter revenue while profits soared nearly 70% from a year earlier, the debt buyer and collection agency announced Feb. 15.