Credit

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.

Processors, not independent sales organizations, likely will bear the brunt 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.

Dozens of credit unions are walking away from the $60 million payment Visa issuers will get for the costs they incurred for the massive credit card breach at Heartland Payments System.

In today’s economy, merchants still want to know how much credit and debit card processing is going to cost, but independent sales organizations say price is only one part of the sales pitch. Listening to what the merchant says it needs can be equally as important in securing the deal.

Electronic-payment services provider Network for Electronic Transfers (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., known as NETS, has launched a mobile-payment option for its cashless-payment service iNETS, according to a company statement. The service will enable consumers in Singapore to pay bills, make purchases and book tickets using their mobile phones.

Industrial Bank Co. is working with the China Beijing Environment Exchange to launch a China UnionPay-branded, “low-carbon” credit card, an official from the Fuji-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

Citigroup Inc. is said to be switching its entire North American banking operations to a core processing application from Fidelity National Information Services Inc.

From the January/February 2010 issue of ISO&Agent.

From the January/February 2010 issue of ISO&Agent.

Discover Financial Services is responding to a growing trend to give consumers greater flexibility to choose the services they want with a new online tool called CardBuilder, which enables card applicants to set card terms based on preference.