Payment cards

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council intends to clear up confusion regarding tokenization, a process designed to protect payment card security.

Consumers accustomed to receiving coupons for product samples or trial sizes of laundry detergent or dish soap in the mail soon instead may receive private-label prepaid cards they could use at a retailer to obtain full-size versions.

BBVA Compass’ decision to start issuing its own reloadable prepaid debit card eventually may help the bank earn revenue from cardholders who want to share an account with other individuals, including those living in other countries, one analyst observes.

To garner a bigger share of the country’s lucrative payroll card market, India’s IDBI Bank Ltd. has begun offering a debit card that provides a line of credit when cardholders overdraw their account, the issuer announced Aug. 8.

Many of the bank customers responsible for the biggest overdrafts are not broke. They just happen to be big spenders. Now some banks are trying court them as potentially lucrative customers and reduce overdraft losses.

Online Resources Corp.'s second-quarter revenue grew 5.4% year-over-year, to $38.3 million, from higher sales of e-commerce services.

Harland Clarke, the nation’s largest check printer, yesterday reported its core check printing business continued to decline in the second quarter, with revenues falling 8% due to volume declines in check and related products and decreased revenues per unit.

CorFire is working to show it is ready to make a name for itself in mobile payments.

Chris Olson doesn't count himself among EMV's detractors or evangelists. "It's a lot like Beta or VHS, you don't really know how it's going to turn out," says Fremont Bank's COO on the question of whether EMV cards (debit or credit cards embedded with a computer chip that meets the standard named for creators Europay, MasterCard and Visa), magnetic stripe cards or some other kind of point-of-sale plastic will dominate the U.S. card market in the future.

A possible tie-up between bank technology vendors Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, and Misys PLC has fallen through after the companies failed to agree on price.

For a large international operation such as RBS' wholesale banking unit, drawing a mobile roadmap means scaling the knowledge curve posed by fast-developing new devices and technology to find the best match between innovation and client demand.

Cardtronics has acquired LocatorSearch, LLC, a provider of location search technology deployed by financial institutions to help customers and members find the nearest, most appropriate and convenient location based on the service they seek.

After years of discussion, the acquiring industry is preparing to offer a credentialing system that proponents say will certify a professional’s mastery of a defined standard of practice and “quantify expertise.”

State Bank of India Ltd. on July 28 became the first card issuer in the country to announce plans to convert its entire portfolio of magnetic stripe credit cards to EMV chip-and-PIN formats.

Helped by strong growth in purchase volume outside the U.S., Visa Inc. on July 27 reported healthy across-the-board fiscal third quarter transaction growth.

Hacking suspects may blame their arrests on having picked the wrong target.

Despite drops in second-quarter revenue and profitability, Diebold Inc.’s top executive remained positive about the company’s earnings thanks to accelerated growth in North America.

Aided by relatively strong performance from its EFT Processing segment, transaction processor Euronet Worldwide Inc. reported favorable second-quarter revenue and profitability.

Observers have speculated that now that ISIS has signed on card networks Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express to work with its telecom members AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon on mobile payments, it will muscle out competing scheme Google Wallet. To date, Google has signed on one card network, MasterCard, and one telecom operator, Sprint, as well as Citi, First Data and sixteen merchants as tenant partners.

USAA has already processed nearly $4 billion in mobile banking transactions in the two years it has offered its Deposit@Mobile smartphone app. The company is now expanding this service, which lets customers deposit checks by snapping pictures of them with their mobile device, to the iPad 2 and plotting a new wave of digital banking products.