Credit

Monitise Americas LLC is planning to introduce a version of its Mobile Money application for phones that use Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

The Internal Revenue Service, in probing how $100 billion of credit card payments escape sales and income taxes each year, is looking at clients of processors including First Data Corp.

Visa Inc.’s plan to add mobile-phone payment capabilities to handsets available now could provide a shot in the arm for contactless payment.

Cambridge University researchers looking into chip-and-PIN security say they successfully tricked a point-of-sale terminal into accepting a “dummy” PIN for a smart card using a “man-in-the-middle” attack.

MasterCard Worldwide on Wednesday announced that Fifth Third Bancorp is adopting an element of MasterCard’s InControl service for commercial card customers in an ongoing effort to convert more business-to-business payments from check to cards.

Discover Financial Services agreed to pay $775 million to Morgan Stanley to resolve a dispute over how to divide the proceeds of a legal settlement with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., reports Bloomberg News.

Total Systems Solutions Inc., also known as TSYS, is entering the Italian market for the first time.

A new regulation approved by the Financial Supervisory Service of Korea could slow domestic growth in mobile payments, an official from the regulator confirmed. Under the new policy, all transactions initiated with advanced handsets would be subject to the same security requirements that control online transactions initiated with personal computers.

A small mobile-phone Near Field Communication payment trial is under way in Slovenia designed to test consumer use of MasterCard and Maestro contactless payments, Inside Contactless announced today.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued seven debt settlement firms and six of their executives, alleging the firms misrepresent their services to consumers as a way to boost credit scores.

Legislation set to be introduced in Minnesota this month would ban the "re-aging" of delinquent consumer debts, making them harder to collect — particularly when the amounts owed cannot be verified.

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.