Payments

PayPal's new iPhone application is more than a payment system — the company is also trying to make it easier for people to use the app as a cash replacement.

MasterCard Worldwide for years has offered ATM Hunter only on its Web site, but interest in the ATM-finder service skyrocketed when the card brand made it available for smartphones, says Cheryl Guerin, MasterCard senior vice president, U.S. and digital marketing.

Credit card delinquency rates fell again in February, and the most promising signs in the data released this week were further declines in early-stage delinquencies - loans that are 30 to 60 days past due.

RALEIGH, N.C. – State Employees’ CU plans to roll out a stored value Visa card product later this month that will make it impossible for users prone to overdraft to spend more than they have.

First Data Corp. plans to use technology embedded into a digital memory card as the next step in evolving the payment processor’s contactless-payment technology.

Capital One Financial Corp. yesterday reported lower-than-expected charge-off and delinquency rates on its U.S. credit cards for February, prompting at least one securities firm to suggest credit card chargeoffs as a whole may begin to decline during the second quarter.

MasterCard Worldwide today launched an ATM-finder application for Blackberry smartphones, nearly a year after the card brand rolled out the same free downloadable, customizable application for the Apple iPhone.

Discover Financial Services last week signaled to analysts it expects to report lower-than-expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31. Discover plans to report the quarter’s earnings on Tuesday.

Barclaycard reportedly plans to deploy mobile phones enabled with Near Field Communication payment technology in conjunction with France-based mobile-network operator Orange during the second half of this year. The report did not specify where the phone would be available, and both companies operate in multiple countries.

A mobile payments business model Citigroup Inc. tested in India has proven a hit among all the key players, even wireless carriers.

Visa Inc. is looking outside the U.S. for growth and hopes to derive more than half of its revenues from international markets within the next five years, executives from the card company today told investors gathered in San Francisco for its annual Investor Day presentation.

Tio Networks, which today announced the planned launch of a mobile bill-payment platform, estimates it will generate 20% of its revenue from the service by 2011, according to the Burnaby, British Columbia-based expedited bill-payment processor.

Target Corp. has begun delivering coupons to customers' mobile phones.

China Mobile plans to purchase a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank for 39.8 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion or 4.2 billion euros) as part of its plans to develop a mobile-payment system in the country, China Mobile announced on March 10.

One of the world’s largest trials of Near Field Communication payments, which Citigroup Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide launched last year in India, provided a glimpse into the challenges of incorporating merchant-sponsored product discounts and coupons within mobile payments.

WorldNet, an Ireland-based online payment gateway, says its virtual payment-terminal application released this week for Apple Inc.’s iPhone is the company’s first, and it plans to add chip-and-PIN capability to the software in later versions.

The original goal of providing uniform protections for all consumer credit is getting lost to lawmakers' preoccupation over where to place a new regulator.

U.S. credit card chargeoffs rose again through January, reaching levels close to the peaks set last fall, according to data Fitch Group’s Fitch Ratings released last week.

Firethorn Holdings LLC is offering consumers free access to their accounts at more than 3,700 financial institutions through a single mobile application, according to the Atlanta-based mobile-service provider.

Credit unions sold 22 credit card portfolios last year, and while the total number of deals was the same as the previous year, the total asset value of the portfolios sold more than tripled, according to consulting firm TRK Advisors.