Credit

With Black Friday later this week marking the official launch of the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation said its 2010 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions survey has found that 43% of holiday shoppers will rely on debit cards as a primary form of payment, up from 34.3% who said so in a similar survey in 2005.

Bank of America Corp. is building on its mobile payments strategy with plans to issue contactless stickers to its credit and debit card customers next year.

The man who developed the concept for what is now the most popular social-networking website has created a mobile-payments application that relies on facial recognition to confirm a user’s identity at the point of sale.

Holiday shoppers are turning away from using credit cards as their main payment option this season, according to an online survey Harris Interactive conducted for prepaid provider Green Dot Corp. Harris polled 2,288 U.S. adults 18 and older from Nov. 10 to 12.

Despite growth in Germany’s e-commerce market within the past year, Deutsche Card Services GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank Group AG, believes merchants should support multiple languages on their websites to attract international customers and enable Germany to compete better with other European e-commerce merchants.

Bank of America Corp. is planning to issue contactless payment stickers to at least some of its card customers, a source familiar with the plans said.

In 2009, banks and credit unions reported 41,548 suspicious activities related to card fraud, representing a 4.6% jump from 39,711 reports the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which maintains data on suspicious activity reports.

With sponsorship from Citigroup Inc., Billing Revolution Inc. is trying to help convert people who window-shop on their mobile phones into paying customers.

Electronic Payment Systems LLC, a Denver-based independent sales organization, says a federal judge has ruled that it owns a toll-free number now used by approximately 515,000 merchants processing with TSYS Acquiring Solutions.

American Express Co.’s latest efforts to enable cardholders to tailor their young adult-themed Zync card benefits follows a general trend toward customization to build loyalty, one observer says.

Blackboard Inc. and PE Systems LLC have formed a partnership to help colleges and universities seeks ways to reduce their costs to accept credit and debit card payments, Washington, D.C.-based Blackboard announced Nov. 15.

Several cases of credit card fraud in the United Arab Emirates have resulted in losses of more than 200,000 dirham (US$54,443 or 39,000 euros), a top police official in the country told a local newspaper recently.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood released a statement last week warning consumers about a potential debt collection scam in Mississippi, according to ACA International, the association representing collection agencies and creditors.

The Federal Reserve's forthcoming regulations on debit interchange may settle a long-running debate over whether fraud costs and risks are high enough to justify banks' current fees.

Weiss & Lurie says it is examining the proposed sale of Hypercom Corp. to VeriFone Systems Inc. for legal issues. The New York-based firm says it is looking at “possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law by members of the board of directors of Hypercom.”

Chinese banks will replace magnetic stripe cards with smart cards by 2015, according to an official from China UnionPay.

Intrust Bank will use credit card processing, loyalty, merchant processing and other services from Fidelity National Information Services Inc., the Jacksonville, Fla., technology vendor said Wednesday.

VeriFone Systems Inc. is getting a marketing boost for its iPhone payment card reader through a new partnership with the Atlanta processor Elavon.

A federal district court in Chicago shut down an international robocall ring that allegedly conned consumers out of $995 each with false promises to reduce their credit card interest rates.

Through its acquisitions, VeriFone Systems Inc. soon could become the largest terminal maker in the world.