POS and Retail

A San Francisco-based startup called Card.io is offering software that enables cell-phone cameras to scan credit card information, thus moving ecommerce from the Web to mobile phones and creating a new product for ISOs to sell to merchants.

Although mobile-payments venture Isis has publicly disclosed that it wants to add larger payments networks than its initial partner, Discover Financial Services, Discover says it might now be better positioned in the mobile-payments market.

In a significant development that will extend where both Japanese and Chinese credit cardholders may use their cards abroad, Japan-based card organization JCB has signed a memorandum of understanding with China UnionPay to expand the scope of their merchant-acceptance relationship.

Discover Financial Services second-quarter profit more than doubled as declining delinquency and charge-off rates allowed the credit-card lender to tuck away a smaller amount of money to cover bad loans.

Signaling to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide that they no longer are the lone payment card networks in India, the National Payments Corp. of India has joined with Bank of India to launch RuPay-branded debit cards.

Public fallout from the data breaches that have affected Citigroup and other large enterprises in and out of finance in recent weeks has reached the political push back stage, with both Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) hoping the events will breathe new life into data protection legislation that’s failed in the past.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration's push to create a national standard for when and how banks and other companies must notify customers of a data breach appears to be gaining momentum.

Joining the growing raft of processors rolling out advanced data-encryption services to help protect cardholders at the point of sale, Elavon Inc. on June 20 announced a portfolio of products and services dubbed Safe-T Suite.

The announcement last week by several telecommunication companies of plans to create a joint venture to fast-track mobile-payments processing potentially has broad implications for the mobile-payments market in Europe. But the companies have worked together before with little resulting success.

Despite efforts by major card companies to promote the speed and excitement of using mobile phones to pay, it likely will take more than glitzy marketing to convince consumers to use such services, according to a Federal Reserve strategist.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has launched a review of the country’s credit card surcharging practices after receiving complaints that retailers were assessing fees well in excess of their card-acceptance costs.

China UnionPay customers now may use their cards in Peru under an agreement the card company signed last week with Lima-based Interbank Ltd., a spokesperson from the card company tells PaymentsSource.

Ukash, a United Kingdom-based firm that sells prepaid vouchers for online shopping, is expanding the product’s functionality and giving users the option to transfer unused funds to an account accessible with a MasterCard-branded prepaid debit smart card.

Telefónica UK, Vodafone UK, and T-Mobile and Orange parent Everything Everywhere plan to form a joint venture in mobile marketing and payments, the companies announced June 16.

The Federal Reserve’s proposed cap on debit fees is “discriminatory,” because it singles out the nation’s biggest banks and credit unions, so should be barred from being finalized, lawyers for Minnesota’s TCF Bank told a federal appeals court yesterday.

MasterCard Worldwide is making headway in the use of its PayPass service by embedding the contactless chips in wristbands distributed at festivals and other events.

MasterCard Worldwide is making headway in the use of its PayPass service by embedding the contactless chips in wristbands distributed at festivals and other events.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. on June 17 will roll out a second EMV card, expanding its target audience for the higher-technology card to a broader consumer base from elite international business travelers.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s merchant clients could save up to $2,000 annually as a result of pending limits on debit card interchange fees, an executive at the processing company said June 16.

Intuit Inc. is among various vendors that could feel a shock from the emergence of Near Field Communication-powered mobile-payment schemes such as Google Wallet and Isis designed to eclipse banks’ existing, more-pedestrian offerings, such as online and mobile bank-account management.