Credit

Visa Inc. has launched the first Visa-branded, multifunction prepaid card in Singapore that enables users to pay for trips on Singapore’s public transportation system and for purchases at merchants that accept Visa cards for payment, the card company announced April 22.

American Express Co. churned out a first-quarter profit that was more than double what it earned a year earlier, as spending on its cards rebounded sharply and loan losses diminished.

U.S. bankcard issuers faced intense challenges in 2009 as the economy sank into a recession. Unemployment rates soared and home values tumbled, driving credit card charge-offs to hit new peaks, and consumers for the first time pulled back on credit card spending.

Apple Inc. has the power to make mobile payments huge, but apparently not quite the way bankers hope.

Canadian consumers will rely more on prepaid cards as consumer bankruptcies, industry losses and a voluntary code of conduct for the credit and debit card industries reshape the country’s payments industry, predicts Deloitte Canada’s Payments Practice in a report released April 22.

Nagoya Railroad, the transportation bureau of the Japanese city of Nagoya, and four other public-transportation companies are planning to launch a contactless transit card called Manaca for use by riders of trains, buses and subways in Nagoya. The companies expect to complete the launch by next February.

Georgia Power Co. customers may pay their electricity bills at self-service kiosks deployed in seven Best Buy Co. stores throughout the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Since credit and debit card use began its rapid growth some 40 years ago, the way consumers pay for goods and services has evolved to mostly card payments from cash and check use. But credit and debit cards also are helping to increase economic growth by creating jobs and speeding up transactions, Moody’s Economy.com, a division of Moody’s Analytics Inc., reports in a recent study about the impact of electronic payments on economic growth.

Visa Inc.’s planned $2 billion cash purchase of CyberSource Corp., a payment-services and fraud-management provider, suggests the card company is serious about mobile payments–and the risks that the mobile channel may attract.

A significant increase in purchase transactions Total System Services Inc. processed during the first three months of the year may be an indication consumer confidence in the economy is rising, the Columbus, Ga.-based payment processor suggested in its first-quarter earnings results yesterday afternoon.

Citing the continued effects of the economic downturn, Wells Fargo & Co. today reported a higher credit card charge-off rate on a slightly smaller pool of credit card receivables for the first quarter ended March 31 compared with the same period last year.

The Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai plans to seek bids from banks for the issuance of a dual credit/transit chip card, an official from the transportation operator tells PaymentsSource.

Visa Inc. today announced an agreement to purchase CyberSource Corp. to help the card brand’s e-commerce growth plans. Visa will purchase CyberSource for approximately $2 billion. The partnership also will help increase consumer use of debit, prepaid and credit products for online purchases, Visa says.

Fidelity National Information Services has agreed to pay the state almost $1 million and to implement data security for consumer records under a settlement of civil charges over the 2007 theft of consumer information by a former employee.

Target Corp.’s recent decision to stop marketing its cobranded Visa cards to new customers may be the latest sign of trouble for broad cobranded card programs.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and Micros Systems Inc. have reached an amicable settlement in a 2007 antitrust and unlawful competition lawsuit the Princeton, N.J.-based processor filed against Micros. Other defendants included Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC and its subsidiary Merchant Link LLC.

U.S. Bancorp today reported credit and debit card revenue of $258 million for the first quarter ended March 31, up 0.8% from $256 million during the same period last year.

Sainsbury’s Finance, a joint venture of Lloyds Banking Group and J Sainsbury PLC that provides credit cards, loans, insurance and other financial products to consumers, last week launched two credit cards. Sainsbury’s is a major grocery store and petroleum merchant in the United Kingdom.

The potential to outfit 1.5 million vending machines with payment card readers has enticed Apriva, a wireless payment-services company, to start Apriva Vend, a cashless-payment service, the company announced today.

Convenience-store operators this month are launching a fresh campaign for interchange-rate reform with an interactive, animated Web video designed to explain to consumers how credit and debit card interchange fees hurt them economically.