Credit

Target Corp.’s first-quarter performance exceeded the company’s expectations, including its credit card segment’s rise in profitability.

State Bank of India is increasing its domestic merchant acquiring activity with plans to deploy up to 1.5 million point-of-sale terminals for credit and debit card acceptance by March 2011, an official from the Mumbai-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

The Public Transport Ticketing Corp. of Sydney, Australia, has awarded Cubic Corp. a contract to oversee the adoption of a smart card ticketing system in that city, according to the transport authority.

Maxis Communications Ltd. has inked a payments deal with online-payments provider PayPal Inc., the Kuala Lumpur-based telecommunication operator announced last week. The agreement represents the first such deal worldwide between a mobile-network operator and an online payment-service provider, the telco says.

WASHINGTON — The Senate overwhelmingly rejected a measure from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse late Wednesday that would require national banks to offer credit based on the interest rate limits in cardholders' states.

Target Corp.'s credit card business, which suffered from delinquencies during the economic downturn, reportedly outperformed internal projections in the retailer's fiscal first quarter as expenses related to bad debt fell sharply.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has entered a $41.1 million agreement with MasterCard Inc. to settle claims stemming from the 2008 security breach of the Princeton, N.J., company's processing systems.

With threats to interchange fees growing, issuers are looking for ways to hand off more of the costs of rewards programs to merchants.

The payments industry should not view consumers’ changing spending habits coming out of the recession as a threat but instead as an opportunity to provide new products and services to meet customer needs, Chris McWilton, president of U.S. markets at MasterCard Worldwide, said earlier this week during a keynote speech at the 22nd annual Card Forum and Expo in Orlando.

Financial institutions generally view fraud and regulatory pressure as their key challenges this year, according to the Pulse electronic funds transfer network’s 2010 Debit Issuer study released this week.

VeriFone Holdings Inc. has changed its name. The point-of-sale terminal maker now is called VeriFone Systems Inc., the San Jose, Calif.-based company announced May 18.

Certain consumers will soon know a lot more about their creditworthiness, and that power could create competitive and compliance headaches for lenders, including credit card issuers.

Default rates for first and second mortgages and auto loans reportedly declined in April, from March, though bank card default rates rose for the third month in a row, according to the latest data from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Experian PLC.

Despite negative economic winds and the effect of tough new regulations, credit card companies should realize there are ways to adapt and stay positive in the current environment, Peter Vaughn, senior vice president of global brand management for American Express Co. told audience members during Tuesday’s keynote speech at SourceMedia Inc.'s Card Forum and Expo in Orlando.

IPayment Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based payment processor, is reselling Roam Data Inc.’s RoamPay mobile-payment services, Roam Data says. RoamPay can be loaded onto cell phones and used to accept credit and debit card payments.

Indian consumers in March generated sharply higher sales volume on fewer credit card transactions over the same period a year ago, while the number of cards in circulation fell, according to India’s central bank. The trend proves that Indian banks are succeeding in their effort to woo more upscale customers, according to one analyst.

Visa Inc., a sponsor for the 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, last week launched the Visa Match Planner, a social media application that enables users to create customizable World Cup viewing schedules to share with friends on social networking channels such as Facebook.

In January, the slide in consumer credit appeared mild relative to the scale of the economic crisis, with the trend in balances tracking roughly in the middle of the trajectories set in the aftermaths of the five previous recessions.

Interchange fees are the largest component of merchant card-acceptance fees, and the merchant lobby has been waging an aggressive political campaign to get government to curb them.

Muhammad Yunus envisions a world where there is no need for payday lenders or pawnshops and everyone has equal access to credit.