Credit

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.

Economic improvements are helping Heartland Payment Systems Inc., which reported on Feb. 16 that higher spending led to a small jump in fourth-quarter net revenue.

As many as 1,000 credit union members around Maine are believed to have had their card accounts compromised and are now reporting unauthorized transactions on their accounts.

Puget Sound Energy is the first payment-accepting biller to join Doxo Inc.’s free online bill-payment website, the Web-service provider announced Feb. 16.

Hypercom Corp.’s stock rose slightly in morning trading Feb. 16 after the payment-terminal maker reported preliminary fourth-quarter net revenue of $140 million, up 19% from a year earlier.

Deborah McWhinney, the head of Citigroup's flagging personal banking and wealth management group, is leaving her post after a tumultuous two-year run in which she attempted to makeover the nation's third-largest bank following the spin-off of its Smith Barney brokerage unit in 2009.

MasterCard Worldwide plans to bring payment security to U.S. consumers through passcode-generating display cards, the card brand announced Feb. 14 at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

This story has been updated from its original version.