Payments

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – Kinecta FCU is offering members the ability to design their credit cards using a gallery of colorful images or their own photos.

BURTON, Mich.-Five more credit unions have agreed to settle pending civil suits alleging they violated the Electronic Funds Transfer Act's fee disclosure provisions.

An alternative payments company that lets users make electronic payments in cash is planning to quickly expand its user base and merchant clients with the addition of a mobile channel.

Releases of allowances for bad credit card loans continued to plump banks' bottom lines in recent earnings reports, but loss rates look set to bounce off record lows in the first quarter.

City Bank is upgrading its mobile-banking capabilities to compete with larger banks, always a concern for smaller institutions. At the same time, the $1.9 billion-asset bank, which serves a region surrounding Lubbock, Texas, also is experimenting with security applications for mobile devices that shield non-mobile channels.

DALLAS – A New York man has filed a new string of ATM disclosure suits, just as credit unions appear to be getting their hands around another broad swath of suits brought by two Michigan retirees.

LAKE MARY, Fla. – Orange County Public Schools says it has earned about $100,000 in dividends from a three-year-old debit card “MyCFE4Schools” affinity program it has with Central Florida Educators CU.

The world of card acceptance on BlackBerry smartphones has just become more complete.

With Visa debit card spending for online purchases reaching new heights in Europe and the United Kingdom, the timing appears right for consumers to tie those cards to mobile payments.

A startup is attempting to create a mobile-payment system that focuses on digital receipts and rewards. And it leaves payments out of the process.

Target Corp., which has tried for years to sell its credit card assets, is giving up for now, and it is spending more than $2.8 billion to divorce itself from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

PayPal Inc.on Jan. 18 reported a jump in fourth-quarter revenue, driven in part by mobile payments.

NEW YORK–With so much attention on turning mobile phones into payment devices through hardware upgrades, banks may be missing a growing opportunity in the mobile Web browser.

American Express Co. has begun licensing its digital wallet, Serve, in China.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. – Shoppers who belong to credit unions spent 15% more and made 15% more transactions during the peak holiday shopping season in 2011 than in 2010, according to an analysis by CO-OP Financial Services and Saylent Technologies.

A comparison of credit card debt shows that consumers in all 50 states reduced their outstanding balances last year, with averages falling 11% to $6,576 in December compared to December 2010, according to CreditKarma.com, which on Tuesday released its U.S. Credit Score Climate Report.

While most industry analysts see debit interchange only shrinking this year, some suggest there are forces at play that could keep interchange close to levels credit unions currently enjoy.

Three Arizona credit unions are participating in a pilot program to dispense Visa Gift cards at walk-up and drive-through ATMs in select locations throughout the Grand Canyon State.

Narrower loan spreads and lower average loan balances, partially reversed by lower revenue reversals associated with a reduction in net charge-offs, helped drive fourth-quarter reductions in both net revenue and net income for the Card Services & Auto unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co., the issuer announced Friday.

A new mobile-commerce wallet from payment-processor Apriva LLC could go a long way toward helping merchants decide whether investing in new mobile-payment hardware is worth the cost.