Payments

WASHINGTON-At least one influential group of merchants, the National Association of Convenience Stores, which has been battling Visa and MasterCard over card fees for years, has weighed in against the antitrust settlement on credit card fees and is threatening to block the historic deal.

Many high-tech approaches to payments are short-lived. A lucky few get a second chance to disrupt the market.

Developing a mobile wallet for consumers is one thing. Getting those consumers interested and educated about how the wallet works and why they should use phones for payments is an entirely different matter.

The days of the add-on mobile card reader may be numbered, as recent developments around software-based approaches gain strong momentum.

Google's decision to add Google Wallet to its new Nexus 7 tablet could break the limitations its mobile payment system has faced in reaching consumers. 

PayPal's decision to buy its mobile-pay tech partner Card.io sheds light on how the smaller company's technology is shaping the world of mobile payments.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its first enforcement action Wednesday, ordering Capital One Bank N.A. to pay $165 million for what the agency described as deceptive marketing tactics related to various credit card products.

M-Via, which offers a mobile checking account called Boom, said July 18 that it closed a $17 million financing round led by Digicel Group Ltd. M-Via is also changing its name to Boom Financial.

Shopkick's mobile rewards system has relied so far on small devices retailers install at their doors to signal to an app that a customer has visited in person. But for a giant like Macy's, those little devices can add up to a big headache.

Alliance Data Systems Corp. reported delinquencies and chargeoffs fell in June from a year earlier for the private-label cards it manages.

WASHINGTON – At least one influential group of merchants, the National Association of Convenience Stores, which has been battling Visa and MasterCard over card fees for years, has weighed in against last week’s antitrust settlement on credit card fees and is threatening to block the historic deal.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Mazuma CU is now offering its members Visa credit and debit card photo personalization.

Commuters on New York’s busy Metro-North Railroad won’t have to wait in line to buy train tickets if a mobile-ticketing test taking place this summer proves to be successful for the conductors who check thousands of tickets a day.

LevelUp is eliminating one of the fees merchants pay to accept cards through its mobile-payment system, which uses QR codes to access pre-enrolled debit or credit cards when shopping.

Overall consumer borrowing rose by $17.1 billion in May from April, the Federal Reserve reported Monday.

At first, Google seemed to have all of the necessary ingredients for a mobile wallet and Isis had the uphill climb of convincing banks to agree to a system designed by a group of telcos. Isis now has several top banks firmly behind it, but it faces many challenges as well.

For years, the payments industry has been waiting for Apple to disrupt the market with a payment-capable iPhone. Some are finally getting sick of the wait.

The Twitter account @NeedADebitCard shames people who post photos of their debit cards online — but as anti-fraud systems advance, how much danger is there from these photos?

Private-label credit card portfolios haven't looked so healthy in years, at least in terms of credit quality. That could help whet the appetite of anyone shopping for a private-label credit card portfolio, analysts say.

Mobile devices can be used to add a second factor of authentication for bank accounts, but they can also be an easy factor for fraudsters to misuse.