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MasterCard Inc. shares have surged this week after it announced a $1 billion stock buyback plan and said it expects profit to rise faster than some analysts have predicted, reports Bloomberg News.

The need to diversify a merchant portfolio with small and midsize merchants that typically afford better profit margins than large merchants likely drove Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC’s acquisition of National Processing Co., observers say.

With interest in mobile payments growing, First Data Corp. and South Korea-based SK C&C Co. Ltd. reportedly plan to collaborate to enable consumers in the United States, Canada and Mexico to use their mobile phones in place of physical wallets to initiate payment.

College Of The Holy Cross’ recently announced deal with a unit of Heartland Payments Systems Inc. not only will enable students to shop on or off campus using their school identification cards, but they also may use their cards to give back to the community through the processor’s Give Something Back program.

UMonitor’s financial-institution customers now may offer consumers person-to-person funds-transfer services to make payments via mobile phones or e-mail, the Web-based division of Memphis, Tenn.-based Parsam Technologies LLC reported on Sept. 14.

Regions Financial Corp. has agreed to use a merchant-funded rewards program from Cardlytics Inc. that sends consumers targeted offers through their banking websites.

After JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s website went down Wednesday for the second time this week, the company said it would refund late fees and help fix other outage-related problems for the 16.6 million online customers who were unable to access their accounts, reports Bloomberg News.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions, a joint venture between private-equity firm Advent and Fifth Third Bank, said Wednesday that it has agreed to buy National Processing.

Payment processor Global Payments Inc. will sell VeriFone Systems Inc.’s PayWare Mobile service in Canada, VeriFone announced Wednesday.

American Express Co. has launched a benefit that enables its cardholders to use Membership Rewards points to pay for all or part of their purchases on Amazon.com, the company announced Sept. 13.

Calpian Inc., a Dallas-based lender to independent sales organizations, is turning to the investor community to raise money so it can complete more deals.

Mobile operator du, the commercially branded name of the Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co., has launched an automated payment service to enable its postpaid customers to pay bills using their mobile phones, the Dubai-based company earlier this month.

MasterCard Worldwide may be in a position to gain market share in Canada as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. strives to make inroads with its new cobranded MasterCard credit card and other banks contemplate offering dual payment-network brands, according to a report from Mercator Advisory Group.

Dynamic Card Solutions, a provider of instant card issuance, on Tuesday said it has expanded the capabilities of its mobile payments personalization platform, known as CardWizard Perso-to-Go, to support personalization of near-field communication Micro SD cards.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is trying to fix its consumer website after a failure late Monday left more than 16.5 million customers without access to online banking, reports Bloomberg News.

Citigroup Inc. has appointed Jud Linville CEO of its Citi Cards credit card business. He replaces Paul Galant, whom Citi named CEO of a new unit called Global Enterprise Payments.

Facebook Inc. wants more people to "like" its virtual currency system as it bids to become a more serious player in payments.

MasterCard Worldwide’s Sept. 14 announcement of its agreement to enter into a payments business-development deal with China UnionPay, along with news that Global Payments Inc. has gained permission to process card payments in China, suggests U.S.-based card players may be moving closer to cracking open the potentially lucrative Chinese market, analysts say.

Card-manufacturing startup Dynamics Inc. this week is unveiling details of Card 2.0, a computing platform usable in payment cards that changes the information on magnetic stripes and erases the stripe data when turned off.

Interbank FX LLC’s recent partnership with GlobalCollect will enable the Salt Lake City-based company to process credit card transactions for its international clients, Netherlands-based GlobalCollect reported on Sept. 13.