Credit

The severing of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Starbucks Inc.’s cobranded Duetto credit card relationship is one of the strongest signals to date of the new pressure card issuers face in the increasingly constrained credit card industry.

Gemalto NV has introduced a duel-interface payment card with both an EMV chip and a magnetic stripe for U.S. banks and other card issuers, according to the France-based card vendor. The card manufacturer hopes the product helps relieve difficulties consumers may experience when transacting with mag-stripe cards in nations that have converted to chip-and-PIN payment technology.

With consumers increasingly shifting spending to debit, Total System Services Inc. has developed a way to help credit issuers retain those transactions by combining both functions in one card.

Barclays plans to take over Citibank’s Italian credit card business in a deal the United Kingdom-based issuer announced Thursday. The acquisition will cover approximately 197,000 credit card accounts and assets of approximately 234 million euros (US$ 318 million), almost all of which is outstanding credit card debts.

Domestic and international banks in the United Arab Emirates increasingly are looking to raise fees tied to credit cards in the face of sagging loan revenue, local news reports indicated.

With the economy showing signs of recovery, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday gave more clues as to how the central bank will return to normal and made clear that financial institutions are central to his plans.

Starting Feb. 22, lenders must comply with changes in Regulation Z, part of the Credit CARD Act of 2009. This regulation is designed to promote the informed use of consumer credit by requiring disclosures about its terms and cost. It also regulates certain credit card practices and provides a means for fair and timely resolution of credit billing disputes.

Banks are using advanced collections systems to spot troubled loans before they go bad and to help their employees determine which borrowers might be receptive to modification offers.

Growing debit and credit card use is affecting how often Texans carry cash, suggest the results of a survey by Swacha, a Dallas-based regional-payments association.

Visa Europe and France-based payment-services provider SAS Carte Bleue today announced the completion of a merger involving the companies’ French operations and the creation of Visa France.

MasterCard Worldwide’s credit card transactions are not being cannibalized by the growth in consumer debit card use, Chris McWilton, MasterCard president of U.S. markets, today told analysts at the Credit Suisse Financial Services Forum in Miami.

A majority of UK consumers hold retailers primarily responsible for making online transactions safer, and fraud risk remains a top concern for many UK shoppers when making online purchases, according to data released today from CyberSource Ltd., a UK-based subsidiary of CyberSource Corp.

Though most consumers (61%) are aware there are new credit card protections, most (65%) do not know they take effect later this month and do not understand the specific protections Congress approved last year, a recent survey commissioned by the Consumer Federation of America and CUNA reveals.

As the head of one of the nation's largest microlenders, Gina Harman is leading the charge to expand the availability of credit to underserved communities in this country.

Target Corp. customers now may store gift card data electronically and make payments at the point of sale using their mobile phones.

The Secure POS Vendor Alliance, an Atlanta-based trade organization representing point-of-sale terminal makers, says it is forming the Lab Network, a collection of research labs that would work on shared security matters.

Point-of-sale terminal maker XAC Automation Corp. will use advanced payment-data encryption technology from Voltage Security Inc. in its new devices, Voltage announced this week.

Big banks are starting to open the tech-spending spigot, but times are tight for their smaller peers.

Financial companies, discovering that people who bank by phone don't always bank online, are changing how they look at mobile services.

Xerox Corp. said Monday it has completed its roughly $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., an outsourcer that, among other things, processes credit card applications for issuers.