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 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.

"A burglar cannot rob 300 homes in one night, but a cybercriminal can attack 300 mobile devices at a time," said Dr. Markus Jakobsson, principal scientist, consumer security at PayPal.

Citigroup is testing new mobile payment features with its U.S. commercial cardholders in anticipation of a global rollout.

Credit unions issuing debit or credit cards should plan to migrate to chip technology soon. That's the view held by three analysts speaking at America's CU Conference.

To hear Dan Wagner tell it, one would think the CEO of London-based mPowa was ready to enter the ring for a prizefight against all comers in the world of mobile card-based payments.

Almost a year ago, the telecommunications companies backing the Isis mobile wallet venture were clear that they would rely on Near Field Communication. But as technology advances, there may be wisdom in adopting an alternative.

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Pen Air FCU has rolled out a new credit card featuring the logo of the local Blue Wahoos, the Double-A minor league affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Credit union 24, one of only two surviving interstate electronic funds transfer networks exclusively for credit unions, said Jim Park is retiring at year-end after 30 years at the helm.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday filed suit against Wyndham Hotels, claiming the hotel and timeshare company’s failure to establish standard security measures led to three data breaches at its hotels in less than two years, exposing as many as 670,000 credit cards to hackers.

Banks should be in the forefront of a payments world moving toward mobile commerce, according to Monitise CEO Alastair Lukies.

Changes in consumer spending behavior and payment card usage demand FIs carefully segment their credit and debit strategies to grow revenue in the coming years.