RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. – CO-OP Financial Services has signed with TEKchand LLC for technology that allows its credit union clients to remotely control and manipulate marketing messages, and access and research transaction reports.

Consumers' confidence in the economy fell in March after two consecutive months of gains, according to data from Discover Financial Services.

WePay Inc., an online payment service, recently released a public beta version of its payment site designed to enable groups, organizations, associations and individuals to collect, manage and spend money. The company hopes to compete with eBay Inc.’s PayPal by making it simpler to collect money from groups of consumers.

Total credit lines among the top five U.S. credit card issuers soared 56.5% to a peak of $3.74 trillion in 2007 from an aggregate $2.39 trillion in 2005 following the rise of home prices during the first half of the decade. But as the bubble burst in 2007 and housing values began to decline, followed by two years of recession, credit card customers defaulted on their accounts en masse, PaymentsSource data show.

Nishi-Nippon Railroad Co. Ltd. on April 1 discontinued the use of the magnetic stripe cards for access to all of its 12 bus lines, according to the regional transport network operator in Japan. The agency launched the mag-stripe card program 17 years ago.

The Grameen Foundation plans to expand its program that supplies technology for microfinance firms with new financial backing from MasterCard and Cisco.

At least five South Korean card companies have announced plans to launch separate smartphone-based services that would enable consumers to pay down balances owed on their credit cards, local newspaper JoongAng Daily reported.

Infinite Peripherals Inc. has developed a mobile point-of-sale device, the Linea-pro, for Apple Inc.’s iPod Touch designed to enable merchants to expedite consumer purchases.

Mobile phones may soon be able to initiate automated clearing house transactions from checks, an advance that could hasten adoption of wireless devices for business-to-business payments.

SAN DIMAS, Calif. – WesCorp FCU yesterday said it has chosen Viewpointe’s Pointe2Pointe check image exchange network to connect to the its check and image exchange partners.

VIENNA, Va. – Navy FCU has implemented RightNow’s Cloud Monitor to help it listen to conversations, respond to posts regarding the Navy Federal brand, and establish relationships with its members via the social Web.

PayPal Inc.'s mobile payment application has been downloaded more than a million times since it was released three weeks ago on Apple Inc.'s App Store.

With state attorneys general pursuing a growing number of cases against debt collectors and creditors, many collection industry insiders wonder whether they’ll ever get a fair shake.

Limits on issuers’ ability to manage risk represent the most substantial impact from a recent credit card regulation affecting United Kingdom card issuers and cardholders, Auriemma Consulting Group UK Ltd. concludes in a recent report.

Citizens living in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in the Indian state of Orissa now have access to kiosks they may use to pay various utility bills and city taxes, an official from the state’s Information Technology ministry tells PaymentsSource.

SocialWise Inc. is planning to take the BillMyParents online payment system it launched last year mainstream through an advertising blitz.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

BREA, Calif. – Evangelical Christian CU has selected Arcot’s A-OK On Demand Cloud Authentication Service to provide secure online financial transactions for the credit union’s church, Christian school and missionary account holders in more than 100 countries.

In its annual report to Congress on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), released last week (see story), the Federal Trade Commission's methodology for analysis paints an incomplete and inaccurate portrayal of consumer complaints against the third-party collection industry.