Payments

MANSFIELD, Texas – Mansfield’s high schools have a new way of promoting their school spirit, with student-designed custom debit cards issued by Texas Trust CU.

INDIANAPOLIS – Eli Lilly FCU on Tuesday said it bought back its $20-million Visa cards portfolio from Bank of America’s FIA Services unit and will have the 6,500 accounts serviced by credit union-owned The Members Group.

Zynga's social games — especially its hit Facebook game FarmVille — are a big deal in digital payments. Its games are the key to the success of Facebook Credits, and they may provide a similar boost to American Express' Serve.

BillMyParents is working with Extole to promote the SpendSmart card for teens. BillMyParents' card provides parents with real-time notices of teens' purchases and allows parents to shut off the card's ability to transact.

Credit unions must adjust soon to the impact of mobile payments, which can disrupt their revenue from traditional payment systems like credit and debit cards.

Better analytics are helping a number of credit unions to drive better revenue from their card portfolios.

Quality data mining-combined with a particular Alaskan consumer behavior-helped True North FCU to generate a 9% response on a direct mail campaign and a 5% increase in outstanding credit card balances.

ORLANDO – Credit and debit sales volumes have been crisscrossing over the past 17 months, but without an obvious explanation.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska USA FCU, Alaska Option and Acculynk said Alaska USA will now enable Internet PIN debit through Acculynk’s PaySecure network.

Less than one-third of U.S. consumers have used their phones to make payments, whereas two thirds of consumers in China have, new data show.

While data released by the Federal Reserve indicates 99% of credit unions have not seen any decrease in interchange income as the result of the Durbin Amendment, Stan Hollen CEO of CO-OP Financial Services is urging CUs to prepare for decreases to come.

China's credit card purchase volume surged by nearly 50% last year as more online merchants began accepting credit cards, but fraud is also on the rise.

BROWNSTOWN, Mich. – Advantage One FCU has launched a new feature of its Premium Perks Rewards Program, called My Value Center, which provides online coupons and discounts as rewards.

The Russian credit card market grew to 422.9 billion rubles (US $13.4 billion) in receivables in the first quarter of this year, up 79% from 235.8 million rubles during the same period last year, with more than 14.5 million credit cards in circulation, according to a new research report released late last month by Russia’s Tinkoff Credit Systems bank.

In a deal that could enhance shopping at one of China’s leading supermarket chains, China PnR Mobile Payments Solutions Pvt. Ltd. recently announced it would provide supermarket retailer Suning Tesco Inc. with mobile-payment services.

I recently introduced the MasterCard Mobile Payments Readiness Index (see story) to a group of c-level bankers, and told them that one of our top-level findings is that it's the early days for mobile payments.

Consumer borrowing surged in March by the most in more than a decade thanks to growing demand for student loans and autos.

CINCINNATI – Vantiv yesterday said it is joining with Saylent Technologies to offer Vantiv Analytics to Vantiv credit union and bank debit portfolio customers.

Mobile payment is revolutionizing the payments industry, suggests the widespread sentiment among industry insiders and observers.

It may finally be time to start working on plans to convert the card base from mag stripe to EMV.