Credit

Experian PLC said Thursday that it has purchased RentBureau, a credit bureau that tracks rent payments, from DSI Holdings LLC.

Significant improvement in the credit performance of loyal customers and continued solid growth in cardholder spending aided by higher gasoline prices helped bolster Discover Financial Services’ performance for the fiscal second quarter ended May 31, the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company announced June 24.

The pace of payments-executive recruitment is increasing again after a long lull caused by the economic downturn and overall industry uncertainty, according to top payments executive recruiters.

Sweeping new regulations and spiking loan losses have set off a flurry of maneuvers and countermaneuvers in the multidimensional battlefield of credit card pricing.

Financial institutions could experience significant drops in the rate of delinquent accounts by establishing multiple lending relationships with individual customers, the results of new research by credit bureau TransUnion suggest.

The consumer credit card charge-off rate declined for the second consecutive month in May, increasing the likelihood that charge-off rates soon will dip below their year-ago levels, Moody’s Investors Services said in a June 22 report.

Accelerated Payment Technologies Inc. hopes its recent name change will further its ambitions to sign up more merchants for its point-of-sale processing services. It also is looking for a bit of help from software vendors.

West Lafayette, Ind.-based Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union has rolled out a limited-edition Drew Brees credit card, featuring the star of last year’s Super Bowl who played his college football at Purdue University.

To reduce the cost to distribute financial-aid checks, North Central Missouri College in January began depositing the funds into students’ campus card accounts. Since making the change, the school not only has saved money, “but we haven’t had any negative feedback, especially because students now have access to their money quicker,” Sharon Barnett, the college’s vice president of administrative services, tells PaymentsSource.

Sweeping new regulations and spiking loan losses have set off a flurry of maneuvers and countermaneuvers in the multidimensional battlefield of credit card pricing.

The debit-interchange amendment many observers expect lawmakers to approve June 22 will negatively affect debit card issuers, but adjustments made this week mean banks and payment networks were spared from some potentially more-dire effects, analysts suggest.

Government regulators in the United Kingdom should intervene to reduce how much it costs merchants to accept card payments, the British Retail Consortium contends.

More and more banks in Nigeria have begun shifting to EMV chip-and-PIN cards following various directives and warnings from the Central Bank of Nigeria, an official from the bank tells PaymentsSource.

ATLANTA – Delta Community CU has introduced its own mobile banking program, which it said will provide both consumer and business services members with convenient and secure access to real-time account information through their cell phones, smart phones, PDAs or other mobile devices.

Nokia Corp.’s decision last week to include an NFC chip in every one of its smart phones starting next year finally could help move the technology from scattered worldwide pilots to a major rollout and widespread consumer adoption, observers say.

Consumers with rewards-based cards prefer lower-value benefits such as cash-back incentives to longer-term perks such as airline miles, survey data suggest.

Point-of-sale terminal makers want to be known for more than solely selling hardware. All three of the major terminal makers–Ingenico S.A., Hypercom Corp. and VeriFone Systems Inc.–are turning to recurring service revenue to bolster their financial results.

KT Corp. expects soon to buy a stake in Korean credit card issuer BC Card Co., Korea’s second-largest mobile carrier announced June 16.

PayPal Inc. is beginning its second contest to encourage third-party software developers to create applications that tie into its payment system.

Mobile payments have yet to take off domestically, but NACHA is positioning the automated clearing house network to play a prominent role, if and when they do.