Credit

HSBC Holdings PLC's North American arm still isn't adding much to the company yet, but it has reduced its consumer finance losses to the point where it is no longer weighing down its parent.

Lockport, N.Y.-based Cornerstone Community Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union based in Western New York, has introduced a mobile banking service.

A mobile-payments effort seemingly designed to exclude banks may accomplish the exact opposite.

MasterCard Worldwide continues its realignment of top executives, most notably with last week’s announcement of the pending departure of emerging-payments head Josh Peirez and a new executive appointed to lead the card network’s franchise development.

ACH Federal LLC, an automated clearinghouse transaction processor, will refer merchants wanting credit and debit card transaction-processing services to PDX Enterprise Solutions, a Portland, Ore.-based independent sales organization, ACH Federal announced July 28.

Mindbody, a San Luis Opisbo, Calif.-based company that makes business-management software for health-and-fitness businesses, has become an independent sales organization to improve its profit margin and to secure more control over its relationships with merchants, says Rick Stollmeyer, Mindbody founder and CEO.

Tesco Bank, a unit of the United Kingdom grocery chain Tesco PLC, is using its brand recognition and a priority to draw more consumers into its stores to provide a perk most bankcard issuers are unable to offer–0% interest on all purchases for 13 months for new customers of its Tesco Clubcard credit card.

Online-payment service provider PayPal Inc. plans to deploy a new and different approach to target consumers, merchants and developers in its quest to expand in Japan, the payments unit of online auction site eBay Inc. announced in late July.

Visa Inc. today announced the official launch of Rightcliq by Visa, an online shopping service the card brand initially announced early in July (see story).

AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile USA are attempting to create a system to bypass credit and debit cards and allow consumers to pay for purchases by smartphones, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing unnamed sources.

Bling Nation Ltd. has begun issuing its mobile payment stickers to employees of PayPal Inc. at PayPal's headquarters in San Jose.

Citigroup Inc. said Friday that it is offering commercial credit cards in South Africa, the 50th country its global transaction services unit has reached.

MoneyGram International Inc. swung to a second-quarter profit on an 11% drop in operating expenses as revenue came in short of analysts' expectations, reports Dow Jones.

U.S. consumer credit charge-off rates continued declining in June, continuing a trend underscoring the improving health of card issuers’ portfolios.

Ingenico S.A.’s strategy of building recurring, services-based revenue appears to be paying off.

Significant improvement in two key business metrics–fleet-fueling volume and number of vehicles serviced–combined with stronger cobrand MasterCard purchase volume helped boost second-quarter revenue at Wright Express Corp.

Wright Express Corp. on July 30 announced a $318 million deal to acquire the Australian prepaid and fleet card operations of London-based Retail Decisions Ltd. as part of Wright’s strategy to diversify its fuel card operations.

Economic pressures that caused volume to decline in Europe and decreases in mobile-operator rates in some markets contributed to a relatively poor second quarter financially for Euronet Worldwide Inc.

Visa shares slumped more than 5% Thursday after the company revealed that the U.S. Justice Department is considering suing it over a policy that bars merchants from charging extra to customers who pay with credit cards. Visa reports its earnings July 28 (see story).

PBS A/S, a Denmark-based electronic-payments provider, will process all transactions initiated with cards issued in Germany by Luxembourg-based Ikano Bank SE under an expanded contract agreement PBS announced on July 27.