Credit

While banks are pouring money into new treasury management systems, a lack of technological literacy at business clients and a strategic disparity between corporate buyers and their suppliers continues to anchor many companies to paper checks.

Citigroup Inc. is planning to make more money available to donate through the mobile charity application CauseWorld.

ABN Amro Bank NV has cut the spending limits for some of its credit card customers to a tenth of the previous limits, reports local newspaper The Times of India, which also says the bank has raised the minimum monthly payment amount to 7% of the outstanding balance from 5% previously.

Ingenico SA has introduced a suite of mobile-commerce applications designed to work with most mobile devices merchants already own, thereby simplifying the sales process for independent sales organizations hoping to convince more merchants to accept payment cards, contends the France-based point-of-sale terminal maker.

As one of the first resellers of VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s PayWare Mobile service, Merchant 360 Inc. says some mobile merchants like that the service includes a card reader that enables them to get card-present transaction rates.

CRE Secure Payments LLC last week announced a partnership with PayPal Inc. in which CRE Secure will offer its HTML Clone as PayPal’s preferred Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance service for merchants using PayPal’s Payments Pro and PayFlow Pro payment tools.

BOSTON – Fiserv filed suit in federal court here last week claiming a senior executive laid off from its CheckFree unit took a confidential customer list with him and is now using it to solicit customers on behalf of a competitor, Charles River Systems.

Capital One Financial Corp. Chairman and CEO Richard Fairbank reportedly received stock options and awards valued at $6.1 million in 2009, 35% less than his 2008 pay, according a Dow Jones report citing the bank's proxy filing Thursday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is continuing to revamp its credit card program by resurrecting a rich, and now rare, cash-back reward — with a new, seasonal twist.

Credit card issuers this week began scrambling to formulate models for what they consider to be “reasonable and proportional” customer penalty fees for late payments and overlimit charges. They must submit their penalty fee models within a month to the Federal Reserve Board, which intends to use the information when it sets final rules implementing the last portion of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.

Lingering effects of a weakened U.S. economy continue to inhibit U.S. small businesses from making significant payment-systems upgrades, according to VeriFone Holdings Inc.

The ratio of bankcard borrowers 90 days or more delinquent on one or more of their credit cards increased to 1.21% in the fourth quarter of 2009, up from 1.1% in the previous quarter, according to data from credit-tracking firm TransUnion. The delinquency rate for the fourth quarter of 2008 also was 1.21%.

GE Money, a leading provider of retail banking and credit services to consumers and retailers, and guitar maker Fender Musical Instruments Corp. this week launched the GE Money Music credit card. The Kettering, Ohio-based unit of General Electric Co. will provide the consumer financing for the private-label card under the multiyear agreement, the companies announced in a news release.

A recent study that focuses on Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance among large merchants also is helpful for educating independent sales organizations and the smaller merchants with which they typically work, observers note. ISOs should educate themselves not only about their specific markets but also about all aspects of data security and compliance in the payments industry to better serve their clients and ensure all merchants protect card data, they say.

Australian credit and charge card holders in December initiated 153.6 million transactions, up by 3.7% from the 148.1 million during the same month a year earlier, data from the Reserve Bank of Australia reveal. Sales volume grew by 4.8%, to AU$22 billion (US$857 million or 627 million euros) from AU$21 billion.

BOSTON – The state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling dismissing a suit by CUMIS Insurance Society and 130 credit unions claiming they were owed recompense in the 2004 credit card breach at BJ Wholesale Club.

Credit card industry profits fell sharply last year primarily because of record numbers of consumer-account defaults caused by the economic downturn. But in their efforts to prevent further losses banks may have overreacted, one analyst contends.

EMVCo LLC this week launched an initiative enabling all payments-industry stakeholders to participate in guiding the organization’s strategic and technical direction.

American Express Co. reportedly awarded its chairman and CEO, Kenneth I. Chenault, compensation totaling $17.4 million last year.

Monoprix Group, a France-based retailer with more than 300 locations and approximately 4,000 point-of-sale devices, is using Hypercom Corp.’s Wynid payment server to process its transactions, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based terminal maker says.