Payment processing

American Express Co. is hitting the streets in Eugene, Ore., to promote Serve, its digital wallet for those consumers who are turned off by the elite branding of its main product line.

Square Inc. is making its smartphone magnetic stripe card reader available through Apple Inc.’s stores and website, but the move has left one observer unimpressed.

Green Dot Corp. has established a new division to serve government agencies.

Many banks' mobile strategies have hinged on getting smartphone applications to market as fast as possible, but now the early adopters are moving on to the next step — making sure those apps live up to consumers' expectations.

Seeking to reassure investors that the effects of the recent cyberattack on the e-mail marketing operations of its Epsilon unit will be minimal, parent Alliance Data Systems Corp.’s chief told analysts April 21 that, although the event made clients angry and frustrated, it has not resulted in any significant falloff in business.

Visa Inc. is working with clothing retailer Gap Inc. to deliver discounts to cardholders via mobile phone SMS text messages.

Stable and improving credit trends helped generate 10% growth in Fifth Third Bancorp’s first quarter card-processing volume, to $80 million from $73 million a year earlier, the bank announced April 21.

Ukash’s partnership with 3V Transaction Services Ltd. to enable consumers to purchase event tickets for the London 2012 Olympics using a Visa-branded virtual prepaid card is part of a company initiative to become a prepaid debit card reload network in Europe, according to CEO David Hunter.

Credit quality is improving for Capital One Financial Corp., but the bank and card issuer expects loan growth to continue to be slow as competition for new customers intensifies.

Improving economic trends that significantly lowered its credit card charge-offs and reduced its provision for losses helped card issuer and loyalty-services provider Alliance Data Systems Corp. to report a sharp rise in first-quarter profits.

Significant improvement in consumer credit helped Wells Fargo & Co. to cross-sell a record of combined products per household during the first quarter, the company announced April 20.

Payment-terminal software applications are poised to play a significant role in the Near Field Communication payment ecosystem.

The National Payments Corp. of India plans to link Rupay, India’s soon-to-be-launched domestic payment card scheme, with the country’s Aadhaar resident-identification program.

The Republic of Botswana’s First National Bank has launched a mobile wallet for its customers in the African country, a spokesperson for the bank tells PaymentsSource.

WASHINGTON — As Congress continues to struggle over whether to delay a pending Federal Reserve Board plan to cap interchange fees for debit cards, a key question remains unresolved: How far is the central bank prepared to go on its own to modify the rule?

Sears Holding Corp.’s Kmart department stores have begun offering an improved version of Western Union Co.’s walk-in bill payment service.

Merchant processor WorldPay is reselling mobile-payments technology from vendor CellPoint Mobile that will allow clients’ customers to conduct transactions in several ways.

Datacard Group has launched its SuperCAT II card encoder, which enables bank customers to select or change a card’s PIN at a branch, the company announced April 18.

Acculynk Inc. has put its independent sales organization reseller program on the backburner as it focuses on its core business, but at least one observer believes the company’s PaySecure Internet-PIN debit product is still a valuable add-on service for merchant acquirers.

Selling mobile-processing services can prove quite profitable for independent sales organizations, observers say.