Existing payments-industry giants are at risk of becoming obsolete if they do not begin experimenting soon with new payments technologies and finding innovative partnerships to meet the changing marketplace demands, according to Dan Schulman, group president for enterprise growth at American Express Co.

ONTARIO, Calif. – Financial Service Centers Cooperative said yesterday it is reducing fees on its MyCUAnywhere text banking transactions to 35 cents per transaction.

SAN FRANCISCO – Visa said yesterday it has invested in Square, a mobile payments start-up founded by the Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that turns phones and iPads into credit card readers.

EBay Inc.’s payment unit, which includes PayPal Inc. and Bill Me Later, experienced a strong first quarter, eBay reported this afternoon.

MoneyGram International said April 26 that it will soon introduce a cash-to-account transfer service in the Philippines.

Thirteen percent of loans modified through the Home Affordable Modification Program in the first half of 2010 were 60 days delinquent after six months, compared with 24% of loans in alternative programs, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) said in a recent report.

USA Technologies Inc., a payments-service provider to vending machine operators, is aiming to get more merchants connected to its services through a partnership with Verizon Wireless.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that a Houston business owner and his debt repair companies must pay $13.8 million for committing fraud against hundreds of Texans.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Tyfone launched the first solution from a third-party vendor that allows any consumer with a mobile device to enroll in, and then use, mobile banking directly from a handset.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – MIT FCU has implemented Integrated Media Management’s TotaleAtlasWeb remote signature capture and document delivery solution as part of a strategy to provide a true virtual branch.

The average charge-off rate on U.S. consumer credit cards fell in March, resuming its general trend of improvement after a slight uptick in February, and account-delinquencies also declined, according to new data Moody’s Investors Service released April 25.

ATLANTA – VSoft Corp., the maker of popular image exchange and remote capture technology, unveiled its own core processing system today for credit unions.

American Express Co. is hitting the streets in Eugene, Ore., to promote Serve, its digital wallet for those consumers who are turned off by the elite branding of its main product line.

Trustwave Holdings Inc. needs to raise money and apparently believes the nation’s economic environment has improved just enough for an initial public offering to achieve that goal, one analyst contends.

Credit Unions now may offer their entire customer base, including those who do not bank online, the option to bank and make payments using their mobile phones through Tyfone Inc.’s enhanced mobile-banking service.

For all the talk about the upcoming NFC-driven mobile payments revolution at the point of sale, new research from Oracle is throwing some cold water on the hype.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has developed a Concept of Operations for use in establishing a contactless fare-payment system, the transit agency announced April 22.

Credit quality is improving for Capital One Financial Corp., but the bank and card issuer expects loan growth to continue to be slow as competition for new customers intensifies.

Square Inc. is making its smartphone magnetic stripe card reader available through Apple Inc.’s stores and website, but the move has left one observer unimpressed.

Green Dot Corp. has established a new division to serve government agencies.