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Superior Bancorp of Birmingham, Ala., and Heartland Payment Systems Inc. have formed a joint marketing agreement offering their payments and banking services to businesses.

TD Banknorth Inc. is set to announce today that it is expanding its private-label card business into Canada.

Alliance Data Systems Corp. announced Friday it has proposed to settle a class action lawsuit its stockholders filed against it in May 2007 by paying the plaintiffs $380,000 for their attorney fees, says a spokesperson with the Dallas-based transaction processor. The 68th Judicial Court of Dallas County, Texas, has scheduled a hearing July 28 to consider the proposed settlement. The shareholders filed the lawsuit in response to an acquisition agreement Alliance Data reached with Blackstone Capital Partners. Ultimately, Blackstone backed out of the proposed purchase of Alliance Data (CardLine, 4/24). Alliance Data then filed a lawsuit to collect a $170 million "business-interruption fee" from the New York-based investment company.

Envelope-free ATMs will increase the machines' cash deposits because bank customers receive an image of each note, Nicole Sturgill, research director of delivery channels at TowerGroup, the Needham, Mass.-based research arm of MasterCard Worldwide, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication. Many bank customers refuse to put cash into an ATM-deposit envelope because they fear a bank employee might steal it, Sturgill says. ATMs that accept envelope deposits provide a receipt for the overall transaction amount, but they do not identify individual bank notes deposited. Bank customers, however, do not have qualms about using envelopes to deposit checks into an ATM, Sturgill says. Large banks, including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., are converting their entire networks to envelope-free ATMs because customers deposit cash into the ATMs instead having a teller perform the function, Sturgill says. ATM transactions are less expensive, and the machines enable teller to perform other functions.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Chase Bank is promoting its mobile-banking service with a contest that gives consumers a chance to win free tickets to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament by sending a text message to the bank. All residents, not just Chase customers, of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are eligible to participate, says a bank spokesperson. Consumers who send Chase a text message with the word "WIN" until Aug. 9 will receive a text message back from Chase notifying them if they won tickets and directing them to a Web site to claim the prize. "When consumers get the text [message] back from Chase, it shows the capabilities and convenience" of the bank's mobile system, says the spokesperson. The promotion "drives attention to Chase Mobile," the mobile-banking service the bank launched in September, the spokesperson says. As of May, more than 460,000 customers had enrolled in Chase Mobile. Consumers who do not win U.S. Open tickets by sending a text message to Chase can receive tickets by opening a Chase checking account or by depositing additional funds into an existing account, says the spokesperson. Mobile-banking users can check account balances, pay bills, transfer funds and view transactions using cell phones and other mobile devices.

NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based electronic payments organization that oversees the development and management of rules for automated clearinghouse transactions, today announced that Fidelity National Information Services will offer processing of Secure Vault Payments to its bank clients beginning later this year. Secure Vault harnesses the ACH system to enable consumers to make online purchases through their banks. Financial institutions participating in Secure Vault authenticate online shoppers and authorize and confirm their payments. That enhances security by eliminating the need for merchants to secure bank and account information from consumers' checks. By the fourth quarter, Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity says it will make processing and settlement of Secure Vault transactions available to its 9,000 financial-institution clients worldwide. Metavante Corp. made a similar announcement earlier this year (CardLine, 3/15). A NACHA spokesperson says 34 Synovus-owned banks offer Secure Vault, including Columbus Bank & Trust. A number of other banks are poised to launch the service this summer, including Savings Bank of Maine, the spokesperson says. Last month, Apple Vacations Inc. announced the addition of Secure Vault as a payment option on its Web site, joining igourmet.com as one of the first retailers to offer the service to consumers.

Most consumers worldwide remain reluctant to use mobile devices such as cellular phones for mobile banking and payments, and a majority does not trust mobile devices to provide secure transactions, suggest recent survey results from Unisys Corp. Seventy-one percent of respondents would not consider using a mobile device to bank or shop online, and 59% do not believe their mobile devices will provide secure transactions, according to the survey. Financial institutions should "realize there is opportunity out there, but there's also concern about the perception of mobile banking," says a Unisys spokesperson. "Banks need to look at the big picture and need to educate consumers to get them over the fear factor." Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys surveyed 13,296 consumers in 14 countries in March.

Exceleron Software and SmartSynch Inc. have signed an agreement to work together to provide utility companies the ability to offer prepaid utility payments using wireless technology, the companies announced today. SmartSynch, based in Jackson, Miss., provides a wireless transmitter that utilities can install in meters at consumers' homes. Dallas-based Exceleron offers software that works with a utility's billing system to measure consumer use and deduct it from a prepaid account, Jeff Severs, Exceleron chief operating officer, tells CardLine. The agreement with SmartSynch would enable utilities to install a device on meters that use wireless phone networks to send information about consumers' use back to the utility, so the companies could offer prepaid services to consumers without installing new meters, Severs says. The Exceleron software works with utility meters that communicate automatically with the company as opposed to meters that require visits from meter readers, Severs says. The Exceleron software can work with the standard billing systems utilities use or with a prepaid card, Severs says.

While card companies and retailers continue to battle over interchange in the United States, similar events are taking place overseas. MasterCard Europe has "temporarily repealed" its interchange rates that European regulators say violate antitrust rules, the card company said Thursday. The action applies to cross-border interchange merchant acquirers pay card issuers when customers use MasterCards or Maestro debit cards. On Dec. 19, the European Commission ordered MasterCard to lower the rates within six months or face daily fines amounting to 3.5% of global revenues. On 1 March, MasterCard filed an appeal with the European Court of First Instance. The card organization is continuing that appeal, though MasterCard does not expect a judgment until "the second half of 2010," a MasterCard spokesperson tells CardLine sister publication CardLine Global. The interchange rates average 1% of the sale for MasterCard-branded cards and 0.5% for Maestro-branded cards, the spokesperson says. "MasterCard believes its cross-border interchange system has kept the cost of payment cards low for cardholders," Javier Perez, MasterCard Europe president, says in a statement. In March, the European Commission said it was investigating the interchange rates applied to Visa card transactions in Europe and the card organization's rule that merchants must accept all Visa-branded cards regardless of the issuer or type of transaction.

Processor Global Payments Inc. and United Merchant Services Inc., an independent sales organization, have renewed their multiyear processing agreement.

Visa Europe will keep its cross-border interchange rates as is, even though MasterCard Europe, facing hefty fines from European regulators, said Thursday it would "temporarily repeal" its rates while continuing its appeal of the regulators' decision. "The announcement has no impact in Visa Europe's interchange," Visa said in a statement issued Friday. "We are in ongoing talks with the European Commission about how we (will) set our interchange in the future, and these continue." The commission is investigating Visa Europe's interchange and card practices. In December, it gave MasterCard six months to lower its rates or face paying daily fines amounting to 3.5% of global revenues. Regulators say the rates are anticompetitive. On Friday, Visa Europe repeated that it hoped to reach agreement with the commission. But one analyst questioned how much negotiating power Visa has in the wake of MasterCard's interchange decision. "The way the situation is evolving, it's clear that MasterCard and Visa have little leverage over the [commission]," Gwenn Bézard, senior analyst for the Aite Group, a United States-based consultancy, tells CardLine Global. "It's not good news for Visa." Meanwhile, European retailers welcomed MasterCard's decision to repeal its rates. "This signals a major victory in the battle against this hidden taxation of purchasing, which will bring significant benefits to consumers and retailers," retail trade association EuroCommerce said in a statement issued Friday.

Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund GmbH, a Frankfurt, Germany-based regional transit authority also known as RMV, has expanded its pioneering Near Field Communication mobile-ticketing service that enables commuters to buy higher-value travel passes by tapping their phones at bus, tram, subway and train stops. The authority had allowed customers to use their NFC phones to buy only single-use and other low-value tickets. As first reported by CardLine Global and its sister publication Cards&Payments early last month, the authority is enabling customers to buy monthly passes, which get downloaded to a secure chip in the contactless phones. The chip, embedded in the Nokia 6131 NFC handsets customers can buy for the service, is designed to keep the tickets safe from fraud. Storing tickets on the chip also enables roving inspectors to check the passes just by tapping their own NFC phones or devices against the riders' NFC phones. Previously, the low-value tickets for the "RMV2Go" mobile-ticketing service were stored in the handsets. If requested, riders would display the tickets on the handset screen for inspectors to view. Throughout Germany's gateless transit systems, riders do not need to tap or insert cards or paper tickets into readers to board trams, trains or buses. RMV and transit operators in neighboring Austria enable customers to buy tickets by tapping their NFC phones on tiny chip tags embedded in plastic disks or in stickers posted at transit stations and stops. This automatically opens an application that enables passengers to buy the tickets with a few clicks. The customers register their bank accounts or payment cards in advance to pay for the tickets. They also can tap the tags to connect automatically to the mobile Internet for schedules, departure times, possible delays and other information. The transit authority also confirms it soon will expand the number of tags to 11 more major cities in its service area in the German state of Hesse. By 2012 it plans to have its entire region covered with 15,000 tags. The authority and other players involved in the ticketing service say customers later will be able to download the high-value tickets and applications onto SIM cards and to use other NFC mobile phones.

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Chinese consumers worry more about where they can pay bankcard bills than other factors when choosing credit cards, suggest survey data from Analysys International, a Beijing-based research company. The findings, based on 3,974 questionnaires sent in March to adult Internet users in China, show that 63% of respondents were concerned about convenient ways to pay card bills-whether at ATMs, bank branches or convenience stores. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they worried about card safety. About half of respondents said they considered the card brand when choosing a credit card, while nearly the same percentage considered annual fees. Almost 30% said they were concerned with reward points, while about 12.6% cared about gifts that come with cards.

United States-based auction Web site eBay Inc. says it is reviewing a directive from Australian competition authorities that delays company plans to mandate PayPal, eBay's payment service, as the only online-payment option on the company's Australian Web site, a spokesperson tells CardLine Global. EBay officials worked through Thursday night to "digest the information," the spokesperson says. "We will make further comment following the review process," the spokesperson says. On Thursday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said it was determining if eBay's mandate is anticompetitive (CardLine Global, 13 June). The mandate was scheduled to start Tuesday.

Merchants, who have long chafed at American Express Co.'s fees and some of its policies, have not sued it as often as they have pursued antitrust claims against MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., and their issuing banks.

Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. is offering an American Express Co. card issued by Bank of America Corp.

MasterCard Europe has "temporarily repealed" its interchange rates that European regulators say violate antitrust rules, the card company said Thursday. The action applies to cross-border interchange merchant acquirers pay card issuers when customers use cards carrying the MasterCard or Maestro debit brands. On 19 Dec. 2007, the European Commission ordered MasterCard to lower the rates within six months or face daily fines amounting to 3.5% of global revenues. On 1 March, MasterCard filed an appeal with the European Court of First Instance. The card organization is continuing that appeal, though MasterCard does not expect a judgment until "the second half of 2010," a MasterCard spokesperson tells CardLine Global. The interchange rates average 1% of the sale for MasterCard-branded cards and 0.5% for Maestro-branded cards, the spokesperson says. "MasterCard believes its cross-border interchange system has kept the cost of payment cards low for cardholders," Javier Perez, MasterCard Europe president, says in a statement. In March, the European Commission said it was investigating the interchange rates applied to Visa card transactions in Europe and the card organization's rule that merchants must accept all Visa-branded cards regardless of the issuer or type of transaction. Visa said it expects to reach a "negotiated settlement" with regulators (CardLine Global, 3 April).