Credit

Discover Financial Services announced Thursday that it will be a title sponsor for college football's Orange Bowl for four years starting in 2011.

Cardtronics said Aug. 26 it has received tenders for $97.6 million of its 9.25% Series A senior subordinated notes and is calling the remainder of the $200 million outstanding of the junk bonds.

Intuit Inc. is enhancing its GoPayment mobile credit and debit card acceptance service with a card reader designed to attach to Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

Independent sales organizations contribute about 35% of Global Payments Inc.’s annual revenue, but the revenue they generate has a lower profit margin for the Atlanta-based payments processor than that of some of its other business, suggests a recent analyst report.

Insurers in South Korea reportedly are at loggerheads with credit card companies over the fees they pay when customers use cards to pay their insurance premiums.

The central banks of six Middle East countries reportedly have come together to ask banks in the region to reduce their credit card interest rates, which they say are unacceptably high.

Gemalto NV’s Secure Transactions unit, which includes banking cards, generated 207.4 million euros (US$253 million) in revenue during the first half of this year, up 1.4% from 204.6 million euros during the same period in 2009, the France-based smart card vendor announced Aug. 26. The unit’s profit from operations totaled 5.6 million euros, down 24.3% from 7.4 million euros.

Six casinos in Idaho, Washington and California have signed up to use Global Payments Inc.’s VIP LightSpeed cash-access service, the Atlanta-based payment processor announced Aug. 26.

Beginning Oct. 31, 2012, issuers, merchants and acquirers in Canada that support the American Express brand will become liable for credit and charge card fraud initiated with magnetic stripe cards that chip-and-PIN technology could have prevented, American Express Co.’s AmEx Canada confirms.

Hypercom Corp. said Wednesday that it is bringing to the United States a version of its end-to-end encryption software that is currently available in Asia.

American Heritage FCU last week introduced technology it said combines the convenience of an ATM with a highly-personal two-way interaction.

Various unregulated new mobile-payment services proliferating in the U.S. could be putting certain consumers at risk for fraud, Consumers Union, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization, announced Aug. 24.

VeriFone Systems Inc. beat Wall Street’s expectations for its fiscal third quarter ended July 31 based on strong North American sales and a rebounding Latin American market, and executives at the payment-terminal maker predict demand for wireless payment systems and gas-station terminals will help drive future earnings.

WePay Inc. continues to distinguish itself from other online-payment services by soliciting groups and organizations using social-networking sites. The company recently integrated with Facebook Events and Facebook Groups to enable groups to collect funds online through the social-networking website.

Average credit card charge-offs in July declined sharply, falling below 10% of outstanding receivables for the first time since April 2009, Moody’s Investors Service announced Aug. 25.

American Eagle FCU has signed with Dynamic Card Solutions to use the company’s instant card issuance for unembossed Visa debit cards at the branch level.

PartnersFirst Affinity Services has agreed to use a custom card-production service from the processor Total System Services Inc.

Companies that install or manage payment-application software, such as that used in integrated point-of-sale terminals, can best protect their information by following a list of best practices Visa Inc. issued today, the payments company contends.

The merchant-processing unit of Barclaycard UK in July experienced an almost double-digit increase in spending by its merchant clients’ credit and debit card customers in the United Kingdom compared with the same month last year, challenging the notion that consumer confidence has declined, Barclaycard announced recently.