Payment processing

Intuit Inc. is among various vendors that could feel a shock from the emergence of Near Field Communication-powered mobile-payment schemes such as Google Wallet and Isis designed to eclipse banks’ existing, more-pedestrian offerings, such as online and mobile bank-account management.

Citigroup Inc. on June 15 clarified the timeline and updated the number of accounts breached in a recent hacker attack that put an estimated 1% of its North American Citi-branded credit card base at risk.

Lawyers for Minnesota’s TCF Bank will tell a federal appeals court in St. Louis this morning that the Fed’s proposed cap on debit fees amounts to an unconstitutional “taking” of its assets, in a last-ditch effort by banks and credit unions to block the Fed’s final rule.

A member of the Senate Banking Committee is calling for an investigation into a data breach at Citigroup.

Visa and MasterCard have developed services for merchants to determine which cards cost more to accept — rekindling the debate over whether small banks will suffer under the Durbin amendment.

First Data Corp. is working with mobile news network operator LSN Mobile Inc. to provide a mobile advertising and coupon system for merchants, the companies announced June 15.

Customers living in China now may shop at online retail stores based is Singapore and make their payments from their domestic bank accounts through a new payment service.

The emerging U.S. mobile-payments market could be putting consumers at risk for fraud, and a consumer-advocacy group is urging wireless carriers to protect its customers from unauthorized transactions.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions has changed its name to Vantiv LLC, the company announced June 15.

Credit unions and banks are once again struggling to plug a data breach that is siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from debit cards through purchases at local retailers.

When Congress threatened to cap the interchange fees that banks collect on debit card transactions, the industry argued that such a move would force it to kill off its own debit rewards programs. As it turns out, the demise of those programs might inconvenience consumers but it is unlikely to deal banks much of a financial blow.

Starbucks Corp. finally has an official mobile payment offering for Android smartphones.

U.S. Senators. Charles Schumer , D-N.Y., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are urging the U.S. Department of Justice Department to shut down an underground online drug-trade site called Silk Road, but in a June 6 open letter to the department the senators barely touched on the digital currency–Bitcoins–that fuels the site’s commerce.

The plethora of new mobile payment initiatives – the most recent being the mobile wallet project announced by Google, Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint – can be confusing for banks. What mobile payment technologies make the most sense for a financial institution to offer? In a recent interview with Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, he handicapped the three versions of near-field communication mobile payment technology that standards bodies have approved. [Near-field communication is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that enables short-range communication between electronic devices, and it’s the mechanism most companies are choosing to pursue mobile payments.] The differences between the three versions hinge on who controls the security of the mobile payments by controlling the “secure element” that stores cardholder credentials and account data and communicates with the apps.

Speedy communication to breach victims is vital in preventing fraud, according to lawmakers and regulators who are pushing for faster consumer notifications after last week's disclosure of an incident at Citigroup Inc.

American Express Co. is making its boldest move yet in the prepaid market by introducing a reloadable card that carries almost no fees.

The buzz around person-to-person payments has long been claimed by rival upstarts such as PayPal Inc., but banks are striking back, as evidenced by the ClearXChange consortium.

Barclaycard has retooled a contactless-payments television advertisement to feature use of a mobile phone to make payments in a move that could help to raise awareness of the technology in the United Kingdom. The ad first appeared June 4 during the finale of the popular television show “Britain’s Got Talent.”

WASHINGTON — Bankers lost the Senate fight over interchange fees, but they are hoping the vote will help convince the Federal Reserve Board to raise its proposed 12-cent cap.

American Express Co. is trying to expand the number of users for Serve, its new digital wallet service, through a marketing partnership with AOL Inc.’s Patch news network.