Credit

The banking industry's loan losses could stay elevated for years, recent federal data suggests, even after appearing to peak in late 2009.

Despite another encouraging quarter for banks, highlighted by relatively high profits and lower loan-loss reserves, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. officials said uncertainty about the broader economy is keeping lending depressed.

Cimbal Inc. is bypassing any future business models centered on Near Field Communication payments with a mobile-phone application that mimics NFC functionality but without the use of an embedded chip in the handset.

Consumer confidence improved slightly in August, reversing directions after declining in both June and July, The Conference Board Inc., a New York-based research organization, reported Aug. 31.

Hypercom Corp.’s announced change on Aug. 31 of its sales leadership overseeing multilane point-of-sale products and Latin America signifies the payment-terminal maker’s desire to increase market share and to develop new sales channels.

Providers of card not present (CNP) payments technology will soon have company as Transaction Network Services plots an expansion of its international CNP product into the U.S. market.

South Koreans’ credit card spending overseas reached a new high in this year’s second quarter, the Bank of Korea reports.

UMassFive College Credit Union has selected ACH Federation to provide the independent not-for-profit cooperative financial institution with back-end automated clearinghouse technology to enable the institution’s members to pay their various loans by phone.

As the industry waits for Near Field Communication technology to reach the market, other mobile-payments technologies are being tested all over the globe. These products work by integrating technology similar to NFC into existing mobile handsets.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC today announced the availability of a new product, PCI Assist, designed to help the processor’s smaller merchants validate their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

ACI Worldwide Inc. said Monday that it would supply payment services to Domino's Pizza Inc.

MasterCard Worldwide has announced a deal with a Brussels online payment company that would give customers of MasterCard issuers greater access to U.S. and United Kingdom online merchants.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. is betting that its Virtual Wallet account, which has always focused on showing consumers how to be better savers, can also teach them to be better spenders.

Capital One Financial Corp. will acquire 20 million card accounts after signing a deal with Kohl’s Corp. to offer store-branded credit cards to new and existing customers of Kohl’s and its subsidiaries, Kohl’s announced in a recent U.S. Securities & Exchange filing.

Small-business owners’ confidence dropped sharply in August amid increasing gloom about the economy, according to new survey data Discover Financial Services released Aug. 30.

AIB Merchant Services Ltd. has launched an initiative that enables consumers to integrate multiple merchant-loyalty cards on one contactless tag.

Since launching the Visa Travel Currency prepaid card in 2003, cardholders at Axis Bank Ltd. have loaded more than US$1 billion into their card accounts, making Axis the first Indian bank to achieve that milestone, according to Visa Inc.

West Jordan, Utah-based Mountain America Credit Union announced a new application for the Apple iPad that will allow its members who own the popular tablet computers to conduct much of their financial business online.

Macy’s Inc.’s launch last week of the new Macy’s American Express card has several perks that improve on earlier versions of the store operator’s cobranded cards, one observer says.

Alliance Data Systems Corp. has signed a multiyear agreement to provide private-label retail credit card services for David’s Bridal Inc. and its subsidiary Priscilla of Boston, encompassing 300 stores nationwide plus e-commerce operations, the Dallas-based company announced Aug. 26.