Credit

Will Detterman, the chief executive of Leap Payments Inc., admits he's taking a big chance in adopting a payment card acceptance pricing model that bucks the traditional formula.

Barclaycard reportedly plans to deploy mobile phones enabled with Near Field Communication payment technology in conjunction with France-based mobile-network operator Orange during the second half of this year. The report did not specify where the phone would be available, and both companies operate in multiple countries.

Discover Financial Services this week signaled to analysts it expects to report lower-than-expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31. Discover plans to report the quarter’s earnings on March 16.

Magento Inc. and PayPal Inc. this week announced an expansion of an earlier partnership that will enable online retailers to accept PayPal payments through Magento’s open-source shopping platform.

India’s ICICI Bank Ltd. no longer is issuing lifetime, annual fee-free credit cards to any new card customers, an official from the bank tells PaymentsSource, requesting anonymity.

Mumbai passengers on the western line of the Indian city’s suburban railway network now may use the Mumbai Go contactless smart card for fare payments. The agency officially made the service available at midnight March 10, completing the implementation of smart card acceptance across the city’s public transport facilities, an official from the railway operator tells PaymentsSource.

Visa Inc. said Thursday that payments volume on its U.S. cards picked up 12% in February from a year earlier, driven by a surge in debit use.

First Data Corp. executives say the company has no plans for an initial public offering — but its choice of a chief executive seems to say otherwise.

A mobile payments business model Citigroup Inc. tested in India has proven a hit among all the key players, even wireless carriers.

Michael Capellas, chairman and CEO of First Data Corp., is leaving the Atlanta-based payment processor to work as a senior advisor at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., the investment group that bought the transaction processor in 2007.

Visa Inc. is looking outside the U.S. for growth and hopes to derive more than half of its revenues from international markets within the next five years, executives from the card company today told investors gathered in San Francisco for its annual Investor Day presentation.

Tio Networks, which today announced the planned launch of a mobile bill-payment platform, estimates it will generate 20% of its revenue from the service by 2011, according to the Burnaby, British Columbia-based expedited bill-payment processor.

Target Corp. has begun delivering coupons to customers' mobile phones.

Card-not-present fraud in the United Kingdom declined by an estimated 15% last year, to 278 million British pounds (US$416 million or 304 million euros) from 328 pounds (US$490 million or 359 million euros) the previous year, reports Retail Decisions PLC.

China Mobile plans to purchase a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank for 39.8 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion or 4.2 billion euros) as part of its plans to develop a mobile-payment system in the country, China Mobile announced on March 10.

One of the world’s largest trials of Near Field Communication payments, which Citigroup Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide launched last year in India, provided a glimpse into the challenges of incorporating merchant-sponsored product discounts and coupons within mobile payments.

Tack a $35 overdraft fee on to a $5 debit purchase at Starbucks enough times, and the cost really starts to add up — and not just for the unsuspecting caffeine addict stuck with the tab.

U.S. consumer credit card debt inched higher again for data released in February, but the average credit score remained the same as the previous month at 669, according to a March 10 report from Credit Karma Inc., a San Francisco-based company whose Web site tracks credit scores.

The South Korean Fair Trade Commission is urging card companies in that country to allow their cardholders to earn reward points on purchases made overseas, according to a statement issued by the antitrust group.

WorldNet, an Ireland-based online payment gateway, says its virtual payment-terminal application released this week for Apple Inc.’s iPhone is the company’s first, and it plans to add chip-and-PIN capability to the software in later versions.