Payments

Merced School Employees Federal Credit Union members now can pay bills using their mobile phones through a recent agreement the Merced, Calif.-based institution made that provides them access to Fiserv Inc.’s Mobile Money service.

British issuer Barclaycard and mobile-network operator Orange UK have launched a cobranded contactless credit card, a product that brings the two firms closer to offering payments via mobile phones.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is urging the Federal Reserve Board to return credit card interest rates and fees to year-ago levels after banks raised them in response to new federal rules and surging credit costs, reports Dow Jones.

At the start of 2009, consumers said, almost timidly, that it would be nice to be able to manage their bank accounts with mobile phones. Now, they are demanding such services.

Delinquencies on U.S. prime credit cards reached record levels in December, and charge-offs began climbing toward a high set in September, according to data Fitch Group’s Fitch Ratings released Jan. 5.

Credit card direct mailings are forecasted to pick up again after the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 takes effect in February, industry experts say.

Mophie, a Paw Paw, Mich.-based provider of technology accessory products such as smartphone batteries, later this week expects to reveal an external card reader and an application that manages transactions for Apple Inc.’s iPhone at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

UniRush LLC announced its prepaid RushCard has added a card-to-card funds transfer feature for users who want to transfer money between prepaid Visa RushCards.

Hoping to tap an emerging market, Visa Inc., MasterCard Worldwide and American Express Co. have been working to open their networks to third-party developers of software and smartphone applications.

Luup International Ltd. plans to establish a mobile phone-based remittance service for the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, a spokesperson for the Norway-based payments provider tells PaymentsSource. The service will enable the approximately 500,000 Indonesians in the United Arab Emirates to transfer funds home.

When Brian Moynihan assumes control of Bank of America Corp. next week, he will face daunting new competitive pressure in the credit and debit card arenas, among many other challenges. Moynihan, 50, on Jan. 1 becomes the nation’s largest bank’s president and chief executive officer, succeeding Kenneth D. Lewis, who is retiring.

The Reserve Bank of India has increased limits for transactions initiated with mobile phones, the country’s central bank said in a notification released this week. The bank raised the limit for mobile phone funds transfers and retail purchases to 50,000 rupees (US$1,070 or 745 euros) per day, a bank spokesperson tells PaymentsSource. Previously, the central bank capped mobile funds transfers at 5,000 rupees, while it limited mobile purchases of goods and services to 10,000 rupees. Those limits stood for more than a year. “In addition, transactions up to 1,000 rupees can be facilitated by banks without end-to-end encryption,” the spokesperson adds. In addition, the central bank says it will allow banks to offer services that enable consumers to transfer funds from bank accounts that recipients can redeem in cash instead of account credits. “These funds can be [redeemed] by recipients via ATMs or through agents appointed by banks as business correspondents,” the spokesperson says. “The limit for cash transfer through ATMs or business correspondents has been capped at 5,000 rupees per transaction and 25,000 rupees monthly.”

Consumers worldwide cannot account for an estimated 20% of their weekly cash spending, according to statistics released last week by Visa.

The number of contactless smart cards shipped per year will break the 1 billion mark by 2014, United Kingdom-based IMS Research predicts in a recent report. “The market for contactless is set to nearly double between 2008 and 2014 as the three largest end-user sectors–government and health care identification, transportation, and payment and banking cards–all gain traction, analyst Don Tait said in a statement. The report cites health care as the biggest sector, but transportation is booming. IMS also expects bank and payment cards to move the fastest toward contactless. Though there are relatively few shipments in that sector thus far, consumer awareness and adoption are growing, the firm says. However, adoption is not always smooth, according to research director John Devlin. “One key area that has yet to fully adopt contactless is mobile,” he says, citing the lack of a common certification standard as a chief cause. The lack of agreements between various stakeholders also is holding back the growth in Near Field Communication payments, the company says. IMS is not forecasting major contactless shipments in the mobile segment until 2012.

Monitise PLC, the British mobile banking vendor, says it plans a broader push next year into mobile retailing, initially in the United Kingdom, then across Europe and in the United States.

One more person-to-person payment application for mobile devices might seem merely like incremental progress toward mobile payments, but it demonstrates the increasing pressure to make phones into financial tools, analysts said earlier this month.

A substantial percentage of customers now access account information via smart phones and handsets rather than PCs, even at home.

The alternative-payment processor mPayy Inc. on Thursday announced a mobile payment app for handsets that run the Android operating system from Google Inc.

Monitise PLC, the British mobile banking vendor, says it plans a broader push next year into mobile retailing, initially in the United Kingdom, then across Europe and in the United States.

Debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA) is the defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed by Atlanta-based law firm Webb, Klase & Lemond LLC. The case alleges that Norfolk, Va.-based PRA improperly subjected consumers to arbitration with National Arbitration Forum Inc. (NAF), a service it knew was biased in favor of creditors.