Payments

In the latest phase of Citi’s efforts to hire leaders from the retail world (including Tracey Weber from Travelocity and Frank Eliason from Comcast), the bank has hired Omar Khan, CTO at Samsung Mobile, to head mobile initiatives on a global basis. Khan is said to have led Samsung’s moves into the Android space.

SAN FRANCISCO — Visa and MasterCard have developed services for merchants to determine which cards cost more to accept — rekindling the debate over whether small banks will suffer under the Durbin amendment.

SAN FRANCISCO-Credit Union Journal asked attendees at NAFCU's annual convention for their reaction to Fed's decision to set the interchange cap at 21 cents, plus an allowance for fraud costs.

Many consumers don't know what Near Field Communication is, but the services the technology enables are becoming quite popular. That puts an onus on mobile payments projects that use NFC to move beyond disputes over revenue and other issues.

While many consumers may not know what near-field communication is, the services it enables are becoming quite popular, putting an onus on mobile payments projects in regions as varied as North America, Germany and Turkey to move beyond tech and revenue disputes to deliver a workable model for point of sale transactions executed by smartphones.

PayPal revolutionized how consumers pay for goods online. It's not about to be usurped by the mobile payments movement.

LONDON – Serverside Group Ltd. said yesterday its patent for card customization, which it claims is being infringed upon by dozens of U.S. credit unions and banks, was maintained in an oral hearing by the European Patent Office.

EBay Inc. is building on the mobile payments strategy of its PayPal unit with its $240 million deal to buy Zong Inc., a company that lets consumers charge purchases of digital goods to their wireless phone bills.

Anyone who owns a smart phone knows new apps and program updates are posted every day and even the handsets themselves evolve every year or so.

Consumer credit card growth, which has been on the decline for about three years, could be showing signs of life again, according to data Equifax Inc. released July 1.

The total value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods as well as for money transfers and Near Field Communication-enabled transactions will grow to $670 billion by 2015, up from $240 billion in 2011, according to a new Juniper Research study.

The emerging U.S. mobile-payments market could face some resistance from consumers who are worried about fraud, new research suggests.

Fresh off moving its Citi Ventures unit to the Bay Area to get close to the latest payments tech buzz, Citi’s investing in mobile payments firm Billing Revolution.

Call it cash-back rewards for credit card lenders.

WASHINGTON – The credit union lobby was hailing provisions of the Federal Reserve’s final rule on debit fees last week, while closely monitoring the exemption for credit unions and community banks as a victory they hope will hold credit unions harmless as fees are capped for the biggest card issuers.

LAKE BLUFF, Ill.-According to Michael Moebs, the Fed's interchange fee reduction will not have a large impact on financial institutions' revenue-volume is the key.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.-While many credit union execs took some solace in the fact the Fed raised the proposed interchange cap, a majority of those interviewed by Credit Union Journal remain concerned that the two-tiered system will not work.

Online and mobile-payment startup Dwolla Corp. has been building a payment network called Grid that company executives believe to be more secure than MasterCard Worldwide’s and Visa Inc.’s card networks.

Bill-payment processor Tio Networks Corp. is making headway with its mobile bill-payment application.

In its first major play to connect its mobile-payments service with social media, Starbucks Coffee Co. on June 30 unveiled a mobile-payment application it developed in-house that consolidates the features of previous apps with links to enable users to send Starbucks gift cards via Facebook.