Payment processing

Cardtronics Inc.’s agreement to deploy ATMs aboard five Carnival Cruise Line ships signals Carnival wants more control of the lucrative shipboard ATM business in which cardholders pay surcharge fees as high as $5 per cash withdrawal, says a Cardtronics rival.

Citizens of Dubai last year used the mPay mobile-payment service to make 8,380 payments worth 1.5 million dirham (US$408,386 or 289,894 euros), an official from Dubai government tells PaymentsSource. This represents a massive spike from 2008, when Dubai residents made only 298 mPay transactions worth 25,000 dirham, he says.

RegaloCard, a Miami-based mobile-payments company, has added two retailers–Universo Cellular in El Salvador and Cemaco in Guatemala–to its mobile funds-transfer network.

Users of China Mobile in Shanghai can now use their mobile phones to pay for their Metro transportation fares, according to a statement from the country’s largest telecom operator. The service will allow users to make payments at the turnstiles using mobile phones equipped to support contactless technology.

South Korea-based card company BC Card plans soon to begin expanding where its card are accepted overseas after inking a deal with Discover Financial Service to share credit card networks (see story) , according to a BC Card statement. The move will enable BC Card holders to use their domestic cards in other countries, including the United States, Japan and Singapore the statement notes.

Card-fraud costs the U.S. payments industry, including issuers, merchants and acquirers, an estimated $8.6 billion per year, according to a recent report from Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based consulting firm. However, fraud amounts to only 0.4% of the estimated $2.1 trillion in U.S. card volume annually, according to the report “Card Fraud in the United States: The Case for Encryption.” Aite interviewed more than 30 fraud-management professionals for the report.

U.S. Bancorp has hired Total System Services Inc. to provide card-processing services for its consumer-directed health care benefit cards.

India’s plans to have a domestic card-payment system will take another three years to roll out, an official from the National Payments Corp. of India tells PaymentsSource.

Banks in India will have to pay National Financial Switch 1 rupee (2 U.S. cents or 1.5 euro cents) for every ATM transaction they route through the network, an official at the Reserve Bank of India tells PaymentsSource. The Institute of Development and Research in Banking Technology, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India, had waived the previous 2 rupee switch fee in 2007 to reduce ATM charges.

Under an agreement with Korean payments network BC Card, Discover Financial Service is enabling BC Card holders to use the Discover, Diners Club International and Pulse networks for international purchases and cash access outside of Korea, Discover announced yesterday.

The 5,000 merchant locations and more than 50 independent sales organizations Payment Alliance International acquired from Comdata Processing Systems already have transitioned to using Payment Alliance’s products and services, says Donna Embry, senior vice president of Louisville, Ky.-based Payment Alliance.

Sino Payments Inc., a U.S.-based payments processor that operates out of Hong Kong, says it has signed its first agreement with a European acquirer, Valitor. Under the deal, European merchants will be able to use Sino Payments to process online and card-present transactions.

First Data Corp. recently announced a shakeup of its international division as part of an effort to unite the company into a single global organization designed to develop and deliver products faster.

PayPal Inc. may face its most crucial test this year as it seeks to broaden its reach.

Mobile-payments company Apriva announced this week the launch of the AprivaPay and AprivaPay Professional mobile-payment services. The move means Apriva resellers, including ISOs, banks and merchant acquirers, now can resell Apriva’s integrated mobile-payment product.

Ingenico SA generated $976.3 million (691.4 million euros) in revenue in 2009, a 5% decrease from $1.03 billion the previous year, according to preliminary financial results the France-based point-of-sale terminal maker released yesterday. Ingenico’s preliminary results do not include net-income figures.

A general approach to marketing for ISOs seeking new clients is more likely to fail than would a campaign that targets specific merchant segments and generates referrals, some observers believe.

The $60 million settlement (see story) Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and Visa Inc. announced earlier this month regarding the large data breach the processor reported a year ago “has many weaknesses,” claims three law firms representing issuers of Visa cards.

The loss of large clients, price compression, negative currency-exchange rates and the difficult economy contributed to a difficult fourth quarter and 2009 overall for Total System Services Inc., known as TSYS. The same themes also likely will affect the Columbus, Ga.-based transaction processor this year, executives noted yesterday during a conference call with analysts.

Apriva says it will integrate Visa Inc.’s payWave contactless technology into its vending machine transaction-processing service.