With fewer borrowers delinquent on one or more accounts, U.S. consumers' credit risk level dropped in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 to a mark not seen since the first quarter of 2009, according to TransUnion's Credit Risk Index (CRI) released Wednesday.

Mitek Systems, fresh off some major wins for its mobile technology, announced yesterday it broke into the black for its fiscal fourth quarter to the tune of a $180,000 net, compared to a $328,000 loss for the fourth quarter last year.

Recent developments suggest 2011 will be the year that mobile payments take hold in the United States in a big way.

BERLIN, Conn. – Achieve Financial CU announced yesterday the signing of an internet banking and bill payment services contract with Connect Financial Software Solutions, a former CUSO in Salt Lake City.

BILOXI, Miss. – Keesler FCU has signed with Diebold to upgrade its ATMs in the United Kingdom by replacing its current terminals with Diebold Opteva machines, powered by Agilis software.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Polish & Slavic FCU said yesterday it signed with uMonitor to implement the company’s uTransfer secure money transfer system for account-to-account money transfer service.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Palmetto Cooperative Services LLC said yesterday it has signed with Viewpointe to offer the company’s Pointe2Pointe Internet-based image exchange service to its 400 credit unions.

The 200 million wireless subscribers connected to AT&T Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. may not be enough for the companies’ mobile payments joint venture to succeed; it still needs to attract large banks and merchants, one analyst says.

ANZ Bank Ltd. on Nov. 15 launched the ANZ Rugby World Cup MasterCard credit card, marking the country’s first contactless “tap and go” credit card.

When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti in January, the country’s government and relief organizations used services tied to mobile phones to pay victims for clean-up work. The program sought to empower Haitians with a means to buy food and other goods and services.

AT&T Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. on Nov. 16 unveiled Isis, their long-rumored mobile payments joint venture that will route contactless transactions over Discover Financial Services’ network.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA will unveil more details on their joint venture to create a mobile payment network, which will be financially backed by Barclays PLC and Discover Financial Services, as soon as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the situation, Dow Jones is reporting.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Consumers CU said yesterday it has rolled out a mobile banking by text messaging service that allows members to view account balances and activity right from a cell phone or other mobile device.

SAN DIEGO – San Diego County Community CU has introduced live chat capabilities for its members.

FORT WORTH, Texas – Custom Credit Systems announced new mobile capabilities for its CustomLender commercial loan product suite.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. – CO-OP Financial Services is enhancing its My Deposit mobile deposit solution to allow credit unions to reach out to small business owners who want to electronically submit checks to their credit unions for deposit.

Consumers in the United Kingdom and Italy may apply low-cost online purchases to their mobile-phone accounts under a partnership Glamoo Ltd. and Onebip Srl announced Nov. 10.

ASB Bank Ltd. in Azerbaijan has begun accepting payments from its customers for the mobile-phone services provided by Azerfone-Vodafone and NarMobile, the bank announced recently.

Co-Op Financial Services is enhancing its at-home remote deposit-capture service to enable credit unions to reach out to small-business owners who might want to electronically submit checks without visiting a branch, the company announced Nov. 15.

Total U.S. bankruptcy filings rose 11% during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period a year ago. Data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts show there were 1,222,589 filings through September versus 1,100,035 in the first nine months of 2009.