Payment processing

Scotiabank and the Royal Bank of Canada will be the first Canadian banks to issue the Interac Association’s new contactless EMV chip-and-PIN cards, Interac announced Nov. 16.

Global Payments Inc. on Nov. 18 announced a joint venture with Spain-based bank La Caixa, adding access to more than 150,000 merchants in Spain for the Atlanta-based payment processor.

Chinese banks will replace magnetic stripe cards with smart cards by 2015, according to an official from China UnionPay.

Intrust Bank will use credit card processing, loyalty, merchant processing and other services from Fidelity National Information Services Inc., the Jacksonville, Fla., technology vendor said Wednesday.

VeriFone Systems Inc. is getting a marketing boost for its iPhone payment card reader through a new partnership with the Atlanta processor Elavon.

Near Field Communication will outlast other mobile-payment technologies such as microSD cards and two-dimensional barcodes, observers contacted by PaymentsSource generally agree.

PayPal Inc.’s Oct. 26 announcement that its transactions would be integrated into VeriFone Systems Inc.’s mobile point-of-sale product after Jan. 1 is a clear sign PayPal wants to move beyond e-commerce transactions, observers say (see story).

Thirty-two Rhode Island government organizations will use payment-processing services from Point & Pay LLC integrated into Opal Data Technologies Inc. software, Point & Pay announced Nov. 16.

Mobile-payments provider Zong Inc. has entered the Philippines market through partnership agreements with mobile carriers Globe Telecom Ltd. and Smart Communications Ltd., the U.S.-based company announced Nov. 17.

Recent developments suggest 2011 will be the year that mobile payments take hold in the United States in a big way.

The 200 million wireless subscribers connected to AT&T Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. may not be enough for the companies’ mobile payments joint venture to succeed; it still needs to attract large banks and merchants, one analyst says.

First American Payment Systems LP has signed Lenoir, N.C.-based Parkway Bank as its 26th referral-bank partner, the Fort Worth, Texas-based independent sales organization announced Nov. 9.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA will unveil more details on their joint venture to create a mobile payment network, which will be financially backed by Barclays PLC and Discover Financial Services, as soon as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the situation, Dow Jones is reporting.

In detecting merchant fraud, sometimes less is more.

Ixaris Systems Ltd. announced three payment applications Friday for its Opn platform.

Despite a 13.3% increase in payment-processing revenue, Newtek Business Services Inc. posted a third-quarter net loss of $342,000, the payment-services company announced Nov. 10. The company reported net income of $145,000 for the same quarter last year.

The ATM and debit card network practices of MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. are anticompetitive, and their policies harm consumers by forcing ATM owners to increase surcharge fees and reduce ATM deployment in convenient locations, claims the National Association of ATM ISOs and Operators.

PayPal Inc.’s impending move into face-to-face transactions enabled by VeriFone Systems Inc. mobile point-of-sale terminals has the eBay unit developing a reseller program, Laura Chambers, PayPal senior director of mobile, tells PaymentsSource.

More than half of the nation’s largest financial institutions offer mobile-banking services, which continue to evolve from being an extension of online banking to supporting person-to-person funds transfers and other payment capabilities, according to a new report from First Annapolis Consulting Inc.

USA Technologies Inc. generated $4.4 million in total revenue during its fiscal first quarter ended Sept. 30, up 15.8% from $3.8 million during the same period last year, the provider of wireless payment acceptance announced Nov. 10. The company reported a net loss for the quarter of $1.9 million, an improvement from the $2.9 million loss a year earlier.