Debit cards

Amazon is working aggressively to change the way people shop — especially in the grocery space — but not all of its activities focus on products and store design. The e-commerce giant has also influenced a lot about how people use their payment cards.

A deeper dive into the workings of the Amazon Prime Reload program should give the card payments industry serious cause for concern.

In a move that will certainly cause friction across the card payments industry, Amazon announced a new service called Amazon Prime Reload, which incentivizes newcomers to the program to load funds using a debit card or bank account with a 2% cash back on purchases.

Android Pay achieved a broad and rather sudden rollout in Canada this week when the nation’s domestic debit network, Interac, announced its support for the mobile payment service days after Google officially launched Android Pay there.

Gift card marketplace provider Raise is launching a mobile wallet for gift cards to turn them into somewhat of an alternative currency.

Nigeria-based United Bank for Africa (UBA) has introduced a Mastercard debit card available via instant-issue at its branches in Cameroon in a new phase of its push to expand debit usage throughout Africa.

Visa and Cambia Health Solutions, a Portland, Ore.-based health care technology company, are teaming up to offer consumers health care reimbursements directly through debit cards, instead by check or bank transfer.

The Durbin Amendment is on the chopping block , which could reverse years of savings for merchants and consumers.

While approval is likely in the Republican-dominated House, a Senate bill needed for the plan to become law would face a tougher path because the party’s narrower majority in that chamber.

Clinical research sites have concluded that the payments to trial participants are so labor-intensive that the process can become a detriment to their medical studies.

The payments processing and technology giant should add more merchant services and marketing to its Star network to overcome competitive and regulatory pressure, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

A new payment company is addressing what it sees as a gap in young people's knowledge about how their purchases can impact their future financial health.

South Korea is already at the forefront of digital payments as home to Samsung Pay, and this week the country will begin discouraging the use of coins in stores.

Retail-focused Provident Bank has added an on/off switch that allows customers to suspend their debit cards. A few big banks rolled out similar features last year.

When most of the payments industry was working to find a way to accommodate the Durbin amendment's routing rules for EMV debit cards, First Data acquisition target Acculynk had its attention focused elsewhere.

First Data Corp. and Fleetcor are bringing their various gift card operations together in a joint venture designed to streamline distribution and share digital gift card technology.

Downward pressure on Canada’s bank fees continues, as Bank of Montreal this week announced it’s eliminating fees for Interac e-Transfers for all customers with Canadian checking and premium-rate savings accounts.

Chief executives at the biggest U.S. regional banks are asking U.S. lawmakers to consider easing capital requirements and repealing part of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that caps fees banks charge retailers on debit-card transactions.

The scenario where someone uses a check's "float" to purchase something before they have the funds is still more common than many people think, according to the founders of Float, a startup that sends emergency "credit" to a consumer's debit card.

For some people, jury duty is a dreaded American civic obligation. Now, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is adding another unwelcome element: banking fees.