Payments

WASHINGTON – A governor for the Federal Reserve told lawmakers yesterday that any attempt to amend or delay the controversial rule on debit interchange is out of the Fed’s hands and must start with Congress.

Mobile-network operators NTT Docomo Inc. of Japan and KT Corp. of South Korea have inked a deal to support Near Field Communication payments for smartphones in the two countries that use Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

Financial institutions and consumers will be able to more quickly detect and respond to fraudulent transactions and suspicious bank-account activity using a mobile-based fraud-management service ClairMail Inc. has developed, the San Rafael, Calif.-based company announced Feb. 17.

WASHINGTON – NCUA on Wednesday called on the Federal Reserve to extend the Dodd-Frank Act’s protections for smaller institutions to protect credit unions from the network exclusivity and routing restrictions included in the bill’s debit interchange provisions.

Better-than-expected merchant reaction to Intuit Inc.’s offer of free card readers and no monthly service fees to small merchants using its GoPayment mobile-payments service has prompted the company to extend the offer indefinitely, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company announced Feb. 16.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s mobile check-deposit service stood out to the financial services industry as one of the few to make it to market without technology from Mitek Systems Inc. But now even Chase counts itself among Mitek’s growing list of customers.

TEMPE, Ariz. – TruWest CU said yesterday it has signed with PSCU Financial Services to process its 22,000 credit and 48,000 debit card accounts.

LAS VEGAS – A glance at fraud statistics would seem to yield an obvious answer: the United States needs to catch up with the rest of the world and upgrade old-school magnetic stripe cards to modern chip and PIN models.

WASHINGTON – Revenues earned by credit unions from debit card interchange is far more than was previously thought – an estimated $2.6 billion for 2010 – according to CUNA, which is preparing testimony for tomorrow’s Congressional hearing on interchange legislation.

TUKWILA, Wash. – BECU and the University of Washington produced a YouTube video featuring world-famous saxophone player Kenny G, Bill Gates, Sr., TV star Richard Karn of the hit sitcom Home Improvement, and other famous UW Alumni singing the university’s fight song, “Bow Down to Washington,” to introduce the new BECU/UW MasterCard Gold Debit Card yesterday.

Visa Inc. has joined forces with Starbucks Corp. in what may be one of the emerging mobile-payment industry’s first national promotions designed to improve a payment brand’s status within a mobile wallet.

VeriFone Systems Inc. has turned its PayWare Mobile point-of-sale service into the equivalent of a multipurpose Swiss Army knife for payment acceptance, a necessary step to introduce the device to a global audience, according to the San Jose, Calif.-based payment-terminal maker.

SecureKey Technologies Inc. has received an investment from Intel Capital of Santa Clara, Calif., Intel Corp.’s global investment unit announced Feb. 14.

Long satisfied with offering merchants a purpose-built wireless point-of-sale terminal, Matt Freedman, chief operating officer at Total Merchant Services Inc., realized last year his independent sales organization needed to offer more to meet the needs of a broader mobile-merchant audience.

Garanti Bank is using VeriFone Systems Inc.’s Near Field Communication/contactless PIN-pad system in its nationwide rollout of an NFC mobile-payment initiative in Turkey, the payment-terminal maker announced Feb. 14.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is teaming up with the image-capture vendor Mitek Systems Inc. to develop new applications for smartphones.

Online Resources Corp. said Monday that the Montana credit union service organization CUsource LLC has signed on as a reseller for its online banking and bill-payment services.

TUKWILA, Wash. – BECU plans to launch a debit card in conjunction with the University of Washington today, marking the first credit union to have a partnership of this type with the university.

WASHINGTON – The powerful senator who sponsored last year’s amendment to the Dodd-Frank Reform Act regulating debit card interchange is confident his provision will stand, even as the House begins deliberations aimed at changing the provision, or at least delaying its enactment.

Monitise PLC more than tripled its revenue during the six months ended Dec. 31 compared with the same period a year earlier as the mobile-payments company worked to expand its customer base.