Payments

WASHINGTON – Powerful Senate leader Dick Durbin appeared to have stopped the efforts to vote to delay the interchange fee rules, leaving credit unions and banking lobbyists hunting for another way to pass their bill.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Time for credit unions to "take their foot off the brake" and develop strategies to compensate for a loss of debit interchange revenue.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Bill Lehman, VP of portfolio consulting for CSCU, is offering these steps for credit unions to consider to address reduction in debit interchange revenue.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — BB&T Corp. is launching a prepaid card that costs slightly more per month than some competing products — but lacks many back-end fees that have caught the ire of advocacy groups.

WASHINGTON — A new report suggests that if the Federal Reserve proceeds with its proposed cap on debit card swipe fees, banks plan to eliminate a number of free products, cut jobs and make other reductions.

SAN FRANCISCO — A new Javelin Strategy Research report forecasts a decrease of $16.4 billion annually due to both Durbin and recent modifications to Reg E, with a loss of approximately $10.8-billion in FI revenue specifically associated with proposed Durbin revisions.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Credit unions are projecting a negative effect on their bottom lines of 35 basis points due to the Durbin Amendment and resulting lost interchange income, according to NAFCU's most recent Economic & CU Issues Monitor.

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke notified Congress last week that the Fed will not be able to meet an April 21 deadline for approving a final rule on debit fees, but said it still expects to meet a July 21 implementation deadline.

WASHINGTON – Credit union and banking lobbyists were confident last night they were moving closer to the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to delay the debit fee rule, but the measure was not expected to be attached to a sure-thing small business bill being debated yesterday.

A San Francisco-based company on March 30 announced its introduction of a modular set of software frameworks and applications designed to facilitate deployment of Near Field Communication payments and other contactless services by resolving fragmentation and interoperability issues affecting NFC software and hardware installations.

Google Inc. is joining the NFC Forum, a nonprofit association that sets technical specifications for how businesses use Near Field Communication technology for payments applications and other services.

Gemalto NV is offering a software package for MasterCard Worldwide’s PayPass contactless payment system, the chip maker announced March 30.

Citing the proliferation of smartphone Near Fear Communication applications, NFC provider Vivotech Inc. next year plans to conduct an initial public offering of company stock to help boost its ability to build more NFC products and systems, Muhammed Khan, founder and president of Vivotech, tells PaymentsSource.

Bank of America Corp. is looking to hire new executives to lead its retail online and mobile-banking efforts, including those for mobile payments, the company confirmed to PaymentsSource.

Certain effects of the economic downturn have begun to ease, but one recession-hatched trend persists: Cash-strapped consumers continue to show a preference for paying their credit card bills over their mortgages, according to new data TransUnion LLC released Tuesday.

WASHINGTON – The chief sponsor of a Senate bill to delay the interchange rule for as long as two years maneuvered last night to ease passage of the controversial measure by attaching it to popular legislation on small business investment.

Financial-technology provider COCC, formerly Connecticut On-Line Computer Center Inc., is working with mFoundry Inc. to provide mobile-banking services to its bank clients, the companies announced March 28.

The Smurfs may have an important security lesson for banks and credit card networks getting into mobile payments.

Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. has joined the interbank funds-transfer service National Payments Corp. of India launched last fall. The Mumbai-based bank launched the service on March 24 for the bank’s customers across the country, an official at the institution tells PaymentsSource.

The CardTronics ATM Branding Program allows credit unions to place their name on existing ATMs — and their transaction screens — in popular stores such as Walgreens and CVS.