Credit

Allied Banking Corp. has signed an agreement with card company China UnionPay to launch a credit card, the Philippines-based bank announced recently. The bank plans to promote the UnionPay-branded card to the roughly 1 million Filipinos who travel to the Chinese mainland every year.

Regent Asset Management Solutions, a Denver collection agency, said Monday that it plans to hire 1,200 people in the next five years after expanding to a new call center in Overland Park, Kan.

Merchant Warehouse Inc. says its mobile payment-acceptance software for smartphones now works with devices using Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile and Google Inc.’s Android operating systems. The additional phones extend MerchantWare Mobile’s potential coverage to approximately 90% of the smartphones sold in the United States, according to the Boston-based independent sales organization.

Cirro Energy this week announced the launch of a credit card-acceptance initiative designed for small and midsize businesses in Texas. Under the initiative, the subsidiary of Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Resources Inc. is enabling the companies to pay their electric bills using cards carrying the Visa or MasterCard brands.

The Financial Services Commission of Korea is conducting an investigation of certain universities domestically that do not accept credit cards for the payment of tuition fees, local media are reporting.

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.

Barclays Bank of Kenya has launched a Visa-branded credit card called Beba sasa na Barclaycard that enables cardholders to pay off their card debt in equal monthly installments over 12, 24 or 36 months instead of through lump sums or minimum monthly payments, an official from the Nairobi-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

The settlement order imposes a $226,794 judgment that will be suspended once the defendants pay $20,000. The full judgment will be due immediately if it is found that the defendants misrepresented their financial condition.

Credit Bureau Collection Services, a Columbus, Ohio collection agency, will pay a civil fine of $1.1 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law by inaccurately reporting credit information and pushing consumers to pay debts they often did not owe, FTC officials said today.

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.

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.

Blackboard Inc., a technology company that caters to education facilities, last week announced the availability of a university identification card that uses contactless technology to enable payments and building access.

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.