Credit

The pace of growth in outstanding credit card balances among credit union members slowed as of Sept. 30.

Deutsche Bank India Pvt. Ltd. reportedly plans to exit India’s credit card market.

Many indicators from financial institutions, consumers and merchants suggest the United States payments industry is ready to adopt EMV chip-and-PIN technology, a new report suggests.

Ten merchants have signed on to use First Data Corp.’s eGift Social system for sending virtual gift cards online, the Atlanta-based transaction processor announced Dec. 17.

Ingenico SA early Monday plans to announce its reaction to a nonbinding stock offer to buy the payment-terminal maker in a deal whose value could approach 1.34 billion euros (US$1.9 billion). The France-based company would not say who made the bid.

Citibank reported Wednesday that its charge-off rate on credit cards fell to 9.4% of balances from 10.3% in October, the largest drop among the top six U.S. credit card issuers for November.



A consortium of non-profit consumer credit counseling agencies filed a joint complaint letter with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, calling for the agency to take "immediate investigative and enforcement action against debt settlement companies that have brazenly evaded" the FTC's recently amended Telemarketing Sales Rules.



Russian credit cardholders will spend 10% more this month on their holiday spending compared with what they spent last December, ZAO Citibank predicts in a Dec. 13 report.

Financial institutions in India by 2014 will issue a combined 28 million credit cards, which would represent a 13% increase from the 24.7 million cards they issued as of March 30 this year, according to a new research report released Dec. 13.

The promise of personal financial management is to provide account data in a single view — but not all viewers are single.

The 258 McDonald’s restaurants in Russia now accept bankcards, the fast-food provider’s acquirer Russian Standard Bank announced Dec. 13.

Asta Funding Inc., a publicly owned debt buyer, Tuesday reported net income of $3.1 million for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, compared to a net loss of $90.7 million during fiscal year 2009. 


Merchant cash-advance company AmeriMerchant LLC says the hundreds of merchant-services sales offices working with transaction processor First Data Corp. will have an easier time selling AmeriMerchant’s services through an agreement announced Dec. 14.

Consumers again are spending with their credit cards to purchase discounted goods early in the holiday season, suggests First Data Corp.’s November SpendTrend payment card transaction analysis of all store sales activity that First Data processes.

To help build and expand its service-fee revenues and its international footprint, American Express Co. plans to acquire Loyalty Partner, a leading European marketing-services company, the card company announced Dec. 16.

Discover Financial Services is banking on a mobile future. Executives at the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company said during a Dec. 16 conference call with analysts to discuss its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that its deal with wireless carriers AT&T Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. will play heavily in its future.

Improvement in the credit performance of the Discover card portfolio helped Discover Financial Services to generate net income of $349.6 million for the fiscal fourth quarter ended Nov. 30, down 0.8% from $352.5 million during the same period last year, the card company reported this morning. Net revenue rose 1.3%, to $1.6 billion from $1.58 billion.

Washington Trust Bank in Spokane is offering mobile banking services to its customers through text, mobile Web and dedicated applications using mFoundry Inc.'s software.

Google Inc. is collecting the pieces for a major mobile payments system — but it is a long way from assembling them.

FICO announced Dec. 15 it has been awarded eight new patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for advances in credit scoring, credit account management, credit fraud management, insurance fraud management and other areas, bringing its portfolio of U.S. patents to more than 100.