Credit

Fuel retailers operating Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd-supplied gas stations are asking India's competition regulator to intervene with the oil company in a dispute involving credit card terminals, local newspaper Mint this week reported.

Citigroup Inc. has told its U.S. mobile banking customers they should upgrade to a new application for Apple Inc.'s iPhone after the bank's original version was found to have a security flaw, reports Dow Jones.

Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC will offer a New York startup's mobile coupon technology to its merchant customers under an agreement the companies finalized last week.

Metro Bank PLC, perhaps the first new retail bank in the United Kingdom in a century, has agreed to offer MasterCard Inc. credit and debit cards to customers when it opens its doors Thursday.

Despite rising concern in some sectors about a second economic downturn taking hold this year, it is unlikely that a so-called “double-dip recession” would cause credit card charge-off rates to spike again, Moody’s Investors Service notes in a July 26 report.

Small-business owners’ confidence fell again in July as fears about the economy entering another recession rose, the results of a survey Discover Financial Services released July 26 suggest.

National Processing Co., a Louisville, Ky.-based merchant acquirer, announced July 26 plans to resell integrated point-of-sale payment software made by Datacap Systems Inc.

EMV payments are continuing to grow in a variety of venues in Europe, the latest rollout being a deal to supply 1,600 Hypercom Optimum M4100 EMV mobile payment terminals to taxi cabs in Stockholm.

Discover Financial Services’ merchant-acquiring efforts impressed independent sales organization and acquiring respondents to a recent Aite Group LLC survey.

Citizens in the state of Maharashtra in India now may pay their electricity bills online, according to an official from the state’s electricity board.

American Express Co. is looking at potential acquisitions that would strengthen its competitive position in alternative payments as credit conditions continue to improve and competition heats up for high-end consumers.

Hypercom Corp. last week announced a deal in Sweden in which a taxi company in Stockholm is deploying 1,600 of its Optimum M4100 “Blade” payment terminals.

CreditCall Ltd. is developing a mobile-payment application to enable merchants to accept secure chip-and-PIN transactions on Blackberry and other smart phones, the United Kingdom-based payment processor announced last week.

Capital One Financial Corp. was stung during the second quarter by the loss of overlimit fees as a result of the Credit CARD Act, and the law’s overall effects will continue to “pressure” revenues throughout this year, Richard Fairbank, Cap One CEO, told analysts during a July 22 conference call.

American Express Co. remains cautious about the economy and the current regulatory environment, but the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act will affect the company more than the financial reform, Dan Henry, AmEx executive vice president and chief financial officer, told analysts during a conference call on July 22 to discuss second quarter earnings.

Discover Financial Services cardholders can now divvy up the rewards they earn, applying them to part of the cost of merchandise bought through its redemption website and paying for the rest with their cards.

The state of Meghalaya in India has set up an online system consumers may use to pay direct taxes, an official from the state’s financial ministry tells PaymentsSource.

Datacard Group, a leading provider of identification and card-personalization services, on July 22 announced the acquisition of long-time partner Datacard South Pacific Pty. Ltd.

Signs of improvements in the credit card industry continued Thursday with American Express Co. and Capital One Financial Corp. reporting significant improvements in delinquencies and charge-offs.

Credit card issuers have eliminated many practices lawmakers deemed unfair as a result of the Credit CARD Act, most of which went into effect in February. But certain other practices that could put consumers at risk are on the rise, according to a study the Pew Health Group’s Safe Credit Cards Project released July 22.