Debit 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.