Payments

SAN DIEGO – Mission Federal CU is taking the opposite tack on debit transactions than the big banks – the $2-billion credit union is paying members, instead of charging them, to use their debit cards.

SAN DIEGO – San Diego County CU is offering a $1,000 prize for the best photo of a member shredding his or her bank debit card.

Bank of America has dumped its unpopular and much criticized plan to charge a $5 monthly fees to customers who use debit cards to make purchases.

GREENWOOD, VILLAGE, Colo. – Bellco CU launched a photo contest as part of a social media contest to select potential new Visa card designs.

Companies pushing mobile-payment technology in the United Kingdom have failed to capture the imagination of consumers, who generally indicate low interest in initiating transactions using their mobile phones, new study data suggest.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. — CO-OP Financial Services rolled out an expanded rewards offering this morning that will allow credit unions to offer rewards on debit cards, leveraging an online shopping portal to earn cash back for members.

MasterCard Worldwide has signed a letter of intent with Russian cell-phone carrier Mobile TeleSystems to bring PayPass contactless-payment functionality to Russian mobile phones, the card brand announced Oct. 28.

Use of mobile financial services rose sharply during the second quarter compared with the end of last year, according to comScore’s latest mobile banking adoption research.

Apriva LLC plans to launch a mobile wallet next month that could help independent sales organizations and agents stake their claim on part of the mobile-payments market.

Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority has put together an industry group to develop a system under which consumers may pay for taxi fares and small purchases with their mobile phones.

CHICAGO–Google Inc., Isis and PayPal Inc. each are attempting to position their mobile wallets as the one consumers will prefer to use on their smartphones.

Two new Blackberry devices are the first Subscriber Identity Module-based Near Field Communication smartphones to receive MasterCard Worldwide PayPass certification, Research In Motion Ltd. announced Oct. 26.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia on Oct. 26 unveiled a mobile-payment platform to enable iPhone-owning customers to do online banking, instantly send funds to Facebook friends or to anyone’s email address or telephone number, and, with the use of a special cover, make contactless payments.

The nation’s largest credit card issuers in September reported significantly fewer charge-offs than a month earlier, driving the average bankcard charge-off rate to its lowest level since 2007, according to new data Moody’s Investors Service released Wednesday.

FORT WORTH, Texas – Fort Worth Community CU has signed a single-sourced processing, card production and card management contract with Vantiv.

PARCHMENT, Mich. – First Community FCU said it will return an estimated $200,000 to members as part of a three-month debit card campaign called “Skip the Fee, Swipe for FREE.”

Taking mobile payments to new heights, MasterCard Worldwide soon will conduct a test of contactless-based payments at 30,000 feet, enabling passengers to purchase refreshments using its contactless PayPass technology aboard planes from WestJet, a Calgary, Alberta-based airline.

CHICAGO–The mobile-commerce market is littered with various wallet models, acceptance devices and applications, and this is forcing merchant-service providers to seek out ways to bring the elements together to help retailers maximize the channel’s potential, notes one mobile-payments executive.

The Beijing branch of China Telecom Corp. Ltd. has begun enabling customers to make payments using their China UnionPay cards over its mobile network as part of a pilot that launched Oct. 20.

Roughly half of adults in major global markets are interested in mobile payments because of the ease and simplicity they offer, but significant doubts persist about mobile-payment security, according to a study of consumers in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Malaysia released in early October.