Credit

Several credit card issuers this month are taking more “positive, promotional” approaches to introducing new policies and billing-statement changes mandated by a federal law that goes into effect next week, according to new research by Corporate Insight, a New York-based market-research firm.

Despite a fourth quarter net loss Heartland Payment Systems Inc. attributes largely to breach-related expenses, the Princeton, N.J.-based payment processor sees “encouraging progress” in small and midsize merchant transaction-processing volume and same-store sales, Robert Carr, Heartland chairman and CEO, told analysts during a conference call this morning.

Despite concerns regarding credit card fraud, consumers who have experienced a problem generally give their card issuer’s response high marks, New York-based management consulting firm Auriemma Consulting Group concludes in its most recent Cardbeat report. Auriemma based its findings on the results of a survey it conducted in December involving 522 cardholders.

Fraudsters on the prowl for payment card data last year increasingly turned to the hospitality industry as a source for the valuable data, according to the Trustwave Global Security Report 2010 released yesterday.

Visa Inc. and Travelex Central Services Ltd. last week announced the launch of the Visa Money Transfer service in Australia.

A number of forecasters have predicted that the industrywide chargeoff rate will peak in the middle of this year or sooner. But it is likely to be a gradual and uneven turnaround.

Credit card issuers once are again filling consumers’ mailboxes with credit card offers after a tough year in 2009, though not nearly as much as before the economic downturn, reports Synovate Mail Monitor, a New York-based firm that tracks direct mail.

By 2015, consumers worldwide will spend about $119 billion on goods and services using their mobile phones, representing about 8% of the total e-commerce market, predicts ABIresearch. In the United States, mobile shopping rose 203% last year, to $1.2 billion from $396 million in 2008, the New York-based research firm says.

MTN Group is launching a mobile financial-services product for its more than 100 million telecommunication subscribers in Africa and the Middle East that uses Gemalto NV’s SIM-based security module, according to the France-based card vendor. The product will enable subscribers to check account balances and conduct such mobile services as funds transfers and payments.

Last Friday’s opening event for the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, garnered $5.2 million in total spending on Visa credit, debit and prepaid cards, a 46% increase from $3.57 million the same day a year earlier, event sponsor Visa Inc. says.

Processors, not ISOs, likely will handle many provisions of a law that takes effect next January requiring acquirers to report merchant credit and debit card transactions to the Internal Revenue Service, says Henry Helgeson, co-CEO of Merchant Warehouse Inc., a Boston-based ISO.

The credit card industry continues to rely on credit card-backed bonds in roughly the same proportion as it has in recent years, even as net issuance has tailed off sharply.

Banks and online payment companies are moving more functions to their main Web pages and limiting the amount of navigation needed to access bill presentment, information and payment features.

Bank of America Corp. said Tuesday that late payments on credit card loans fell to 7.35% in January, the lowest in a year, reports Bloomberg News.

The Federal Reserve Board should use "common sense" when defining "reasonable and proportional" penalty fees under the new credit card law, Pew Charitable Trusts said Tuesday.

MasterCard Worldwide says chip-and-PIN card issuers have countermeasures available to help prevent an attack that could authenticate a card with a false PIN. MasterCard would not say what the countermeasures include.

Social-networking site Multiply has inked a deal for settling online payments with G-Xchange Inc., a statement from the telecom operator said. G-Xchange is a wholly owned subsidiary of Philippines-based Globe Telecom.

Indian consumers in December initiated 20.5 million credit card transactions, down 9.3% from 22.6 million during the same month the previous year, according to the Reserve Bank of India. Credit card sales volume, however, increased by 3.6%, to 55 billion (US$1.2 billion or 859.9 million euros) rupees from 53.1 billion rupees.

A ban on illegal cellular towers is causing problems for credit card transactions in the Indian capital city of New Delhi, local newspaper The Times of India reports. Several shops at high-end malls in the city reported credit card failures because of failed authorization calls caused by drops on cellular connectivity.

For the third consecutive month, the Credit Managers' Index is signaling that the recession is over and the economy is expanding, according to a report issued last week by the National Association of Credit Management.