Payment processing

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the demise of the decoupled-debit card may have been greatly exaggerated.

Most large U.S. merchants easily will comply with Visa Inc.’s first level of incentives to make payment terminals ready to accept contact and contactless EMV cards next year as part of the card brand’s U.S. push toward chip card technology, but it may take smaller merchants a year or two to get there, payment industry experts suggest.

When newly acquired card customers from HSBC’s U.S. card program and ING’s online bank are folded into Capital One Financial Corp.’s existing base, they will have a rapidly expanding array of digital transaction and payments channels from which to choose.

If data-security standards compliance in the United States mirrors what has occurred in Europe, the onset of EMV chip-and-PIN technology in the U.S. will not mean major retailers will skip validating their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard each year, the head of the PCI Security Standards Council contends.

Subprime credit card issuer First Premier Bank is suing the Federal Reserve Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over a new rule that would limit fees the issuer charges high-risk customers when opening card accounts.

The Federal Reserve Board’s decision to cut debit card interchange effective Oct. 1 will provide a “kick start” for growth at Global Cash Access Holdings Inc., but other events, including contracts with new casinos opening up, also with help drive revenues over the next 12 to 18 months, the company’s top executive told analysts Aug. 9 during a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings.

Mirroring its explanation for the previous quarter’s reduction in year-over-year revenue, Global Cash Access Holdings Inc. on Aug. 9 cited continued weakness in the gaming sector and consumer revolving credit and the loss of Harrah’s Entertainment’s casino business, the company’s largest customer, late last year as the chief attributing factors behind the company’s reduction in second-quarter income.

Instead of dipping its toe into the mobile-payments pool, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. intends to make a splash with a retail application that can enable a merchant’s employees to complete sales transactions anywhere in or out of the store.

Visa Inc. has introduced a series of incentives to spur the U.S. to adopt chip cards–a change once considered as likely as the country switching to the metric system.

Online retailers looking to reduce their number of declined transactions from different countries have a new tool available in their payments-processing kit.

Visa Inc. plans to accelerate the U.S. migration to EMV contact and contactless chip technology, the card brand announced Aug. 9.

Banks may have trouble performing the higher degree of analysis required by new security rules for payments initiated online, but their options include retraining staff and training software that learns from customers' spending patterns.

Cardtronics Inc. cited six different factors that helped the ATM independent sales organization generate a second-quarter revenue boost to $147.3 million, up 10.8% from $132.9 million from the same period a year ago.

A resurgence in demand for online-billing services is helping fuel growth at Online Resources Corp., which is in the midst of restructuring its business.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has set Aug. 29 as its deadline for gathering suggestions from participating organizations for security compliance topics that need further study.

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

Online Resources Corp.’s second-quarter revenue grew 5.4% year-over-year, to $38.3 million, from higher sales of e-commerce services, the company announced Aug. 4.

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.

Prepaid card marketer NetSpend Holdings Inc. reported a 10.3% second quarter year-over-year increase in revenue on Aug. 3 as use of its cards rose.