Credit

International Cards Co. Ltd. has inked a deal with Jordan Trade Facilities Co. Ltd. to launch a cobranded credit card. The MasterCard-branded, EMV-compliant chip card will become available later this month, according to Jordan Trade Facilities.

Consumers should be allowed to use credit cards to pay for insurance products, Lee Doo-hyung, the new chairman of the Credit Finance Association of Korea, said at his inauguration conference this week.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has a new bank-sponsor agreement with Bancorp Bank of Wilmington, Del.

Citing rising credit card purchase volume in key regions outside the U.S., Citigroup Inc. today reported that its global branded credit card business earned a $166 million profit for the first quarter ended March 31, up 17.7% compared with $141 million a year ago. Revenues for the card unit totaled $4.27 billion, up 51.4% from $2.82 billion.

MasterCard Canada says it plans to adopt the code of conduct for Canada’s debit and credit card industry that the country’s finance minister approved April 16. However, Visa Canada and Moneris Solutions Corp., Canada’s largest payments processor, say they need more time to study the code to determine how it affects their businesses.

Interest in Roam Data Inc.’s mobile-payment service appears to be high among independent sales organizations. Most of Roam Data’s 35 resellers are ISOs, says Will Graylin, founder and CEO of Boston-based Roam Data.

Korean federal police are asking the Financial Supervisory Service of Korea to ensure card issuers heighten credit card security, an official from the regulator confirms to PaymentsSource.

VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s upcoming VX point-of-sale terminals will be upgradeable to future Payment Card Industry security standards, the terminal maker says.

Securitized public and private credit card deals totaled $69.4 billion for the five quarters beginning Jan. 1 2009, through March 31, 2010. The pace of deals rose sharply during the second half of last year, peaking during the third quarter at $27.6 billion. Securitized deals tapered off again during the first quarter of this year at $2.5 billion.

E-Commerce Association of Singapore has agreed to offer its online merchant clients payments services from PayPal Inc.

Aided by a substantial release of its credit card loan-loss reserves, Bank of America Corp. today announced that its Global Card Services unit earned $952 million in net income during the first quarter ended March 31; the unit reported a $1.75 billion loss during the same period a year ago.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council will update all three of its standards this year, and it eventually may place all on a three-year update cycle, says Bob Russo, the council’s general manager.

Though some merchants experienced severe financial difficulties during the recession and some went out of business, many others made prudent business decisions and scaled back spending to remain operational, Glenn S. Goldman, president and CEO of Capital Access Network Inc., told PaymentsSource this week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.

Aptys Solutions LLC this week introduced PayHub, a payment-processing system designed for community banks. The system supports multiple payment types, including automated clearinghouse transactions, mobile payments, wire funds transfers and check-image exchanges on a single platform.

The Chonqqing branch of Agricultural Bank of China, one of the China’s five state-owned banks, earlier this month became the latest branch of the bank to launch a debit card targeting local farmers.

Early-stage delinquencies ticked up at a handful of card issuers in March, which could be a bad sign for future credit trends.

MasterCard Inc. wants to get new payments tools out of the labs faster and into cardholders' wallets.

Cash payments will account for less than half of all retail transactions in the United Kingdom by 2015 as consumers increase their use of payment cards, especially debit cards, according to a UK Payments Council report.

Hypercom Corp. plans to use its new point-of-sale products for use with Apple Inc.’s iPhone not only to reach mobile merchants but also to target brick-and-mortar retailers that want to expedite client purchases and avoid long lines at sales registers, Stuart Taylor, Hypercom vice president of global solutions and marketing, told PaymentsSource this week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vega.

Community banks are planning to improve their mobile banking offerings, according to research by Banc Investment Group LLC.