Retailers

Speedy communication to breach victims is vital in preventing fraud, according to lawmakers and regulators who are pushing for faster consumer notifications after last week's disclosure of an incident at Citigroup Inc.

First Data Corp. has renamed one of its payment-acquiring units in the United Kingdom, the payments processor announced June 13.

American Express Co. is making its boldest move yet in the prepaid market by introducing a reloadable card that carries almost no fees.

The buzz around person-to-person payments has long been claimed by rival upstarts such as PayPal Inc., but banks are striking back, as evidenced by the ClearXChange consortium.

Barclaycard has retooled a contactless-payments television advertisement to feature use of a mobile phone to make payments in a move that could help to raise awareness of the technology in the United Kingdom. The ad first appeared June 4 during the finale of the popular television show “Britain’s Got Talent.”

WASHINGTON — Bankers lost the Senate fight over interchange fees, but they are hoping the vote will help convince the Federal Reserve Board to raise its proposed 12-cent cap.

American Express Co. is trying to expand the number of users for Serve, its new digital wallet service, through a marketing partnership with AOL Inc.’s Patch news network.

Law enforcement agents believe hundreds of thousands of dollars being withdrawn from ATMs in California are related to the data breach announced recently by Michaels Stores.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve is expected to vote a final rule on debit fees a week from today, now that a credit union-backed proposal to delay the rules has been shot down in Congress.

Spanish police authorities have arrested three computer hackers who allegedly breached the Sony Corp. networks affiliated with the PlayStation 3 video-game console and the company’s streaming music and video service.

Gift and loyalty services company SparkBase LLC is using $3 million in new funding to hasten the development and deployment of its technology platform and mobile services, which includes a smartphone application that enables consumers to quickly enroll in merchant-loyalty programs.

U.S. Bancorp plans to begin issuing EMV chip credit cards that also include a tap-and-go payment function to its customers this month.

Mirroring the growing chatter about the possibility of U.S. card issuers one day adopting EMV chip-and-PIN technology, panel discussions related to the topic were well attended during the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference in May.

NEW ORLEANS–For all talk about how mobile technology can rapidly bring financial services to emerging markets, it has really only worked in a few countries so far, most notably Kenya and the Philippines. Much of mobile money’s success in Kenya can be attributed to the work of Michael Joseph, a strategic advisor to Safaricom, who discussed here on June 7 his experiences building a new financial infrastructure in that country.

Visa Inc.’s acquisition of Fundamo will help it use mobile payments to serve more underbanked consumers abroad, according to the card network, which on June 9 announced a deal in which is will pay about $110 million for the Cape Town, South Africa-based mobile payments company.

The chances that Citigroup Inc.’s credit cardholders will experience card fraud stemming from a recent online data breach are low, but those customers are likely to be the target of phishing scams.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s shares rose as much as 9% in early trading June 9 after an analyst upgraded the payment processor’s stock on the expectation that it will benefit from the pending caps on debit interchange.

WASHINGTON — Although banks failed in their attempt to convince Congress to delay an interchange fee cap for debit cards, the financial services industry is not giving up, just changing venues.

A United Kingdom consumer-advocacy group is commending Monarch Airlines for dropping what it deems was an unfair debit card fee associated with ticket purchases. But whether Monarch’s move prompts other airlines to drop their similar fees remains to be seen.

Think Computer Corp. has added a contactless-payment capability to its FaceCash mobile wallet.