Five villages will become the first in the Indian state of Tripura to be covered under a biometric card initiative by Tripura State Cooperative Bank, an official from the Agartala-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

The city of Delhi in India soon may launch a smart card-based automated fare-collection system for its public bus service, an official from the service operator, Delhi Transport Corp., tells PaymentsSource.

This could be a big year for micropayments.

During the Cartes and IDentification trade show in Paris in November, France-based Oberthur Technologies displayed a chip card that contains two light-emitting diodes that poke through the surface. When consumers tap or wave the “Smart Lumiere” card at contactless-payment terminals, the LEDs light up, but they do not guarantee a transaction is approved.

Consumers who bank or initiate retail purchases online already can secure those transactions through a variety of means, including passwords used only for the Web, card readers that plug into personal computers or challenge-response procedures that can include images they preselect.

As issuers mail out contactless credit and debit cards by the millions, it is not clear how often they are being used.

Citizens of Dubai last year used the mPay mobile-payment service to make 8,380 payments worth 1.5 million dirham (US$408,386 or 289,894 euros), an official from Dubai government tells PaymentsSource. This represents a massive spike from 2008, when Dubai residents made only 298 mPay transactions worth 25,000 dirham, he says.

RegaloCard, a Miami-based mobile-payments company, has added two retailers–Universo Cellular in El Salvador and Cemaco in Guatemala–to its mobile funds-transfer network.

Users of China Mobile in Shanghai can now use their mobile phones to pay for their Metro transportation fares, according to a statement from the country’s largest telecom operator. The service will allow users to make payments at the turnstiles using mobile phones equipped to support contactless technology.

Florida's faltering real estate market - hurt by the highest residential foreclosure rate in the U.S. - has left some of the nation's largest banks holding billions of dollars in questionable loans.

Remote capture services have become an important offering for business customers, and banks are now adapting the technology for mobile phones in an effort to reach the mainstream.

In one of the most recent signs of the spread of so-called micropayments, U.S.-based start-up Boku Inc. late last year began enabling consumers in Estonia and Venezuela to pay for digital goods using mobile-phone accounts. A consumer who wants to buy virtual currency to acquire extra “lives” or goods useful in online video games, for example, would, after registering, make the purchase through the game provider’s Web site. The consumer would confirm the purchase through a text message, and the charge would appear on the consumer’s mobile phone bill, eliminating the need to use a payment card.

FORT MILLS, S.C. – Sharonview FCU said it has recently upgraded to Unitrends’ latest D2D2D data protection appliances after successfully relying on Unitrends for more than five years.

RICHARDSON, Texas – Texans CU said its Innovative Support Solutions CUSO has signed with Open Solutions to provide its Informant fraud detection solution to Open Solutions’ core clients.

BROOKFIELD, Wis. – Fiserv announced yesterday it is introducing a licensed version of Corillian Online featuring an enhanced user interface and integrated personal financial management tools.

HSBC Holdings PLC’s rollout in the Asia-Pacific region of smart credit cards equipped with the EMV antifraud standard likely will help to increase the pace of EMV adoption this year in most markets, except the U.S., observers say .

Despite an industrywide improvement in chargeoffs evident in fourth-quarter results, many credit card executives are wary of declaring an end to the harshest cycle in decades, with several issuers forecasting higher loan losses this quarter and beyond.

WOBURN, Mass. – EasCorp FCU said yesterday it and its wholly owned CUSO, Vertifi Software, LLC, have expanded their remote deposit capture service, called DeposZip, to include mobile deposits.

Torrance (Calif.) Community Credit Union said it successfully accepted its first mobile phone deposit over an iPhone.

FLINT, Mich. – Financial Plus FCU has joined several other local financial institutions in offering free electronic check recovery services to business checking or commercial customers.