Credit

MasterCard Worldwide, an official partner of the Rugby World Cup 2011 taking place next September in New Zealand, is reaffirming its support of the sport with new research that suggests rugby is growing in popularity and bringing in commerce. In particular, the 2010 RBS Six Nations Championship, which concluded on March 20, produced 465.43 million euros (US$621.2 million) in all forms of payment for the six competing nations, including France, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Italy, according to the research.

In a sign that the efforts of the Secure Remote Payment Council are gaining notice in the industry, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has joined the organization as a general member and as a member of its board of directors.

Acculynk Inc., which enables merchants to accept PIN-debit purchases online, is broadening its offerings to include online card processing and is making its products available for resale through independent sales organizations, the company announced Wednesday.

Consumer credit scores generally remained stable throughout the first quarter, according to a new report from Credit Karma Inc., a San Francisco-based company whose Web site tracks credit scores.

Hoping to extend its reach to mobile merchants, USA ePay, a payment gateway, this week launched a portable card-acceptance machine that connects to Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPod Touch products.

Filipino citizens can now make government payments online using payment cards and mobile-phone wallets under an administrative order the country’s Department of Finance passed with the Department of Trade and Industry, an official from the financial agency tells PaymentsSource.

Adyen Inc., a Netherlands-based online payment gateway company, is expanding into the United States, the company announced April 5.

PayPal Inc.'s mobile payment application has been downloaded more than a million times since it was released three weeks ago on Apple Inc.'s App Store.

In another sign that consumers' financial health is recovering, the American Bankers Association reported the second consecutive quarterly decline in delinquencies. However, analysts warned the improvement could level off in coming quarters.

Medical marijuana dispensaries in three states have agreed to use payment processing services from Cannabis Medical Solutions Inc.

U.S. merchant compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard has changed little since last fall, according to latest compliance update Visa Inc. released this week.

Dirk Rossmann GmbH, a German drugstore chain, is deploying 5,000 Hypercom Corp. Artema Hybrid payment terminals in more than 1,000 locations throughout Germany, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based point-of-sale terminal maker announced Tuesday.

Taiwantrade.com has inked a payments acceptance deal with international online payments provider PayPal Inc., an official from Taiwan’s national business-to-business e-commerce platform tells PaymentsSource. PayPal is a unit of eBay Inc.

Illustrating the downturn in the country’s economy, consumers in the United Arab Emirates used debit and credit cards to initiate 3.04 million purchases during last year’s fourth quarter, down by 10.6% from the 3.4 million during the same period a year earlier, data from the country’s central bank show. The value of the transactions fell 25.7%, to 1.24 billion dirham (US$338 million or 235 million euros) from 1.67 billion dirham.

Bank of America Corp., Capital One Financial Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings PLC reportedly have agreed to settle a class action over credit card arbitration clauses, according to lawyers representing the plaintiffs.

The New York money transfer company CashEdge Inc. has hired Citigroup Inc. veteran Catherine Palmieri as its global head of product and marketing.

Implementing provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act will cost JPMorgan Chase & Co. $500 million to $750 million this year, Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said last week in his annual letter to shareholders.

Citizens living in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in the Indian state of Orissa now have access to kiosks they may use to pay various utility bills and city taxes, an official from the state’s Information Technology ministry tells PaymentsSource.

Total credit lines among the top five U.S. credit card issuers soared 56.5% to a peak of $3.74 trillion in 2007 from an aggregate $2.39 trillion in 2005 following the rise of home prices during the first half of the decade. But as the bubble burst in 2007 and housing values began to decline, followed by two years of recession, credit card customers defaulted on their accounts en masse, PaymentsSource data show.

Consumers want their card issuers to notify them by any means possible when it comes to fraud detection, a new survey says.