Payments News - from Glenbrook Partners

Gemalto, eSECURE Technology Partner for Taiwan Contactless

Payments News Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:57:22 -0800

Gemalto has announced that it has deployed its Secure Access Modules (SAM) into existing EasyCard payment terminals in Taiwan with eSECURE Technology. The SAM card is used to upgrade existing payment terminals for contactless use. Upgraded contactless-ready terminals give consumers a simple, fast and secure means to make small sum payments. There are currently around 16 million EasyCards in the market.

UK Cards Association's "Be Card Smart Online" Campaign

Payments News Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:32:48 -0800

To mark the first anniversary of the UK card industry’s Be Card Smart Online initiative, The UK Cards Association is again running its online safety campaign – helping to remind consumers of the steps they can take to minimize their chances of being a victim of card fraud online.

M2 Europe Launches Airmax Scope Prepaid MasterCard

Payments News Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:29:06 -0800

M2 Europe has teamed with fleet technology innovators, Airmax Group, to introduce a transit and corporate payments solution, the Airmax Scope Prepaid MasterCard. The Card combines the benefits of hosted data from vehicles with detailed payment reporting to provide comprehensive online fuel and expense management.

Headline News - November 12, 2009

Payments News Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:24:01 -0800

Forbes.com: The Big Deal: Mint.com's Patzer
JLM Pacific Epoch: Alipay Releases Mobile Payment Service
Alliance Data's Canadian Loyalty Business Signs New Agreement With Best Western
NetBanker: Quotes: Mercantile Bank on Using PayPal for P2P Payments
NYTimes.com: Small-Business Guide - Marketing Your Business With Facebook

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers looking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.

ViVOtech Partners with Citi in Largest Global NFC Pilot

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:56:49 -0800

ViVOtech has announced that its NFC mobile payment wallet, Over-the-Air (OTA) provisioning, smart posters, coupon delivery and redemption technologies have been successfully deployed in Citi Tap and Pay, a pilot service that brings to India next-generation contactless credit card payments based on this emerging technology. Launched in July in the city of Bengaluru in India, Citi Tap and Pay is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive NFC mobile payment pilots.a

CNP Payment Forum Announces 2010 Conference, May 18-19

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:57:43 -0800

Ashok Misra, Chairman of the CNP Payment Forum, has announced that the CNP Payment Forum (Customer-Not-Present) Annual Conference will be held in Berlin, Germany on May 18 and 19 at the Steigenberger Hotel.

Worries for Prepaid in Dodd's Proposed Financial Agency Legislation

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:37:22 -0800

The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association (NBPCA) has released a statement in response to the introduction of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2009 by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT):

"The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association appreciates the efforts of Chairman Dodd and the Senate Banking Committee to better protect consumer interests. The NBPCA and its members are committed to working with them as this process goes forward. It is absolutely critical that any new regulations not limit access to unique financial products such as prepaid cards, which have become a key tool of financial inclusion for the millions of unbanked and underbanked U.S. consumers who rely on them.

The ICBC Mobile Payment American Express Card in China

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:35:28 -0800

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Union Mobile Pay (UMPay) and American Express have launched the ICBC Mobile Payment American Express® Card, China’s first dual-currency credit card with mobile account payment capabilities and features.

Slides from PayPal Developer Presentations Now Available

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:17:29 -0800

PayPal has made available slides from 24 of the presentations at last week's PayPal Developers' Conference event.

TransFS.com Launches Free iPhone App for Credit Card Processing

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:33:02 -0800

Transparent Financial Services (TransFS) has announced the launch of its TransFS Card Terminal, "an iPhone app that provides businesses with credit card acceptance capabilities in virtually any location. TransFS Card Terminal™ is the first iPhone app of its kind to be free of cost and provide complete freedom of choice in credit card processor selection." TransFS has also made the source code of the application available as open source software.

TD Merchant Services Becomes Full Service Acquirer in Canada

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:51:35 -0800

TD Merchant Services has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire certain MasterCard merchant acquiring accounts from First Data in Canada. Concurrently, First Data will acquire a small number of VISA accounts from TD. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in December. The transaction is not expected to be material to TDBFG’s financial results.

The acquired accounts will become part of TD Merchant Services, which already provides Visa and Interac payment processing services and Point of Sale terminal solutions to all of these customers today. “Acquisition of these MasterCard merchant accounts will ensure our clients have a single source for their payment processing needs,” says Jeff van Duynhoven, President, TD Merchant Services.

Headline News - November 11, 2009

Payments News Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:43:42 -0800

Total Telecom: Nokia Money to go commercial in Q1 2010
CGAP: New business models in mobile banking?
Bankrate.com: 2009 Gift Card Study: Is a gift card on your list?
Brandweek: Visa Olympics Effort Goes Global
Minyanville: The Gall in Your Credit Card's Fine Print
Reuters: US credit card co profits to stay pressured -Fitch
HealthEquity Selects TSYS Healthcare to Provide User-Centric Payment Solutions for Consumer-Directed Health
Federal Court Grants Heartland Payment Systems’ Application for an Order to Show Cause Against VeriFone
Digital Transactions: A Battle for Deposits Helps Fuel Bank Interest in P2P Payments
The PayPal Blog: PayPal Government Relations Launches PayPal Main Street
Get Rich Slowly: How to Establish a Credit History Without Losing Your Shirt
Ecommerce Journal: Research reveals payment habits of Europeans: credit, debit or prepaid cards?
UATP Signs Deal With NxSystems, Inc.
TechCrunch: Next Week: U.S. Senate Committee Hearing On Aggressive Internet Sales Tactics
Wolters Kluwer Financial Services Enhances Anti-Fraud Solution’s Investigative Services Functionality for U.S. and U.K. Financial Institutions
CNBC-TV18 (India): MasterCard to play key role in social programmes
BusinessWeek: Banking: Not Everyone Gets a Bonus
The Financial Brand: ANZ Bank connects with students on their own terms
TMG Blog: Looking for a Piece of the Health Care Pie? Consider HSA Cards
Security Fix - Washington Post: Eight indicted in $9M RBS WorldPay heist

Inflection Point? American Express Sees Growth in October

Payments News Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:52:24 -0800

AP reports on American Express CEO Ken Chenault's presentation earlier today at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Banking Conference where he reported that cardholder spending in October actually increased 3% in October versus the same month in 2008 - the first sign of positive growth this year. Chenault's slide presentation and his prepared talking points are available online.

First Data to Integrate Accertify's Fraud Prevention Platform

Payments News Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:23:20 -0800

First Data and Accertify have announced an agreement to integrate Accertify's fraud prevention platform with First Data's eCommerce processing gateways and platforms.

According to the two companies, "the integration of Accertify's Interceptas® platform will provide First Data with a comprehensive, end-to-end fraud deterrence solution. This solution will equip First Data's customers with tools to help mitigate risk and reduce losses associated with fraud. The solution also eliminates the need for merchants to deploy separate payment and risk platforms. First Data will offer this combined solution to its 300,000 merchants around the world that sell goods or services over the Internet and in a card-not-present environment."

Precious Plastic - 2010 (UK)

Payments News Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:21:10 -0800

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has published a new version of its Precious Plastic report for 2010 covering the card market in the UK. "2009 has been a watershed year for consumer credit in the UK, with both lenders and borrowers reassessing their balance sheets. Historically high levels of bad debt, a growing regulatory burden, continuing funding and capital constraints and the toughest macro-economic environment in a generation are placing unprecedented pressure on UK lenders. As a result, consumers will face a reduction in the availability of credit and an increase in its cost."

Headline News - November 10, 2009

Payments News Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:59:24 -0800

Squeezing Credit Card Consumers

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:30:15 -0800

In an article titled "A Squeeze on Customers Ahead of New Rules", Andrew Martin and Lowell Bergman write for the New York Times about credit card issuer actions to increase interest rates and cut credit lines ahead of new rules on credit card issuers scheduled to take effect in February.

DeviceFidelity Introduces In2Pay MicroSD-based NFC Solution

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:10:36 -0800

DeviceFidelity has announced the availability of In2Pay, a microSD-based solution that "transforms any mobile phone with an available memory card slot into an interactive contactless transaction device. Compatible with near field communication (NFC) technology, In2Pay is now available for trials with banks, wireless carriers and payment networks, with volume production for commercial deployments in 2010. DeviceFidelity has signed evaluation agreements with some of the largest card issuers in the U.S. and will be demonstrating In2Pay at Cartes 2009."

New Job Openings on PaymentsJobs.com

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:04:35 -0800

Two new job openings for payments professionals have recently been posted on PaymentsJobs.com:

SVP of Sales - Allpoint Network, Bethesda, Maryland
Director of Marketing - Allpoint Network, Bethesday, Maryland

Are you hiring? Post your job openings on PaymentsJobs.com - $200 for a 30 day listing!

On-Line Strategies releases OLS.Switch for Rx Adjudication

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:07:46 -0800

On-Line Strategies has announced launching a pilot of its OLS.Switch platform to support Rx Adjudication switching on behalf of a Fortune 100 customer. According to the company, "the initiative was part of a large scale migration plan to decommission a costly legacy platform starting with all financial transactions, and now Rx transactions."

INTERAC Celebrates 25 Years of PIN-Debit in Canada

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:54:28 -0800

INTERAC has announced that it is marking "25 years of providing Canadians secure access to their money from coast to coast to coast. On November 9, 1984, a single national PIN-based network was born out of a vision to connect Canadians to their money anywhere, anytime. INTERAC's growth and evolution took off from that point and today, both consumer awareness and usage levels are almost unmatched worldwide."

Visa Launches First Global Olympic Marketing Campaign

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:47:56 -0800

Visa has announced the global launch of its Olympic-themed marketing campaign for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Go World. According to Visa, "this global campaign, which features television, digital and out-of-home advertising, host market merchant activation programs and usage promotions, enables Visa to connect with cardholders and Olympic and Paralympic Games fans to drive preference for and usage of Visa products worldwide."

LexisNexis Studies US Merchant Fraud Losses

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:04:07 -0800

According to a new report released today by LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, U.S. merchants are incurring $191 billion in fraud losses each year. The 2009 LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud Benchmark Study discovered that merchants must absorb nearly 10 times the identity fraud cost incurred by financial institutions. Retail merchants experience a massive $100 billion in losses solely attributed to identity fraud, which escalates to $191 billion when factoring in the additional cost of lost and stolen merchandise. The study also found that merchant fraud losses amounted to more than 20 times the total value of consumer fraud victim losses which totaled approximately $4.8 billion in 2008.

INSIDE Contactless Powers Taggo Stickers

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:13:49 -0800

INSIDE Contactless has announced that it is providing critical infrastructure components to Taggo, a membership card aggregator and storefront, for the new service Taggo will launch in Singapore and other parts of South East Asia early next year. Using ID stickers based on INSIDE's PicoPass(r) 2KS contactless memory chip, contactless readers based on INSIDE's M210-2G proximity coupler and INSIDE's integration and adoption services, Taggo has developed a way for mobile phone stickers to replace plastic loyalty and membership cards from a variety of retail merchants.

Headline News - November 9, 2009

Payments News Editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:56:03 -0800

New York's Cabbies Love Credit Cards!

Payments News Editor — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:17:13 -0800

In an article titled "New York’s Cabbies Like Credit Cards? Go Figure", Michael M. Grynbaum writes for the New York Times about how New York cabbies have grown to appreciate the benefits of payment card acceptance as they've emerged as "an unlikely savior for New York’s taxi industry." When initially introduced two years ago, cabbies were very unhappy with the requirement to accept cards. According to Grynbaum, all of that has changed.

Fed Reports Another 13% Decline in Revolving Consumer Credit

Payments News Editor — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:10:33 -0800

On Friday, the Federal Reserve released its G.19 Consumer Credit report for the month of September 2009 showing that consumer credit outstanding overall decreased at an annual rate of 7.2 percent in August 2009. Revolving credit outstanding decreased at an annual rate of -13.3 percent, and nonrevolving credit decreased at an annual rate of -3.7 percent.

Wells Fargo Estimates Impact of New Overdraft Fee Policies

Payments News Editor — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:59:19 -0800

In its SEC 10-Q filing today, Wells Fargo estimated that the impact of its new overdraft fee policies will be a $300 million after tax reduction in its fee revenue for 2010.

Quoting: "We recently announced policy changes that will help customers limit overdraft and returned item fees. We currently estimate that these changes will reduce our 2010 fee revenue by approximately $300 million (after tax), although the actual impact could vary due to a variety of factors including implementation timing and customer behavior in response to the policy changes."

Headline News - November 6, 2009

Payments News Editor — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:41:53 -0800

Online Banking Report Publishes New Research “Attracting Small Businesses with Online & Mobile Banking: Underserved Segment is Prime Candidate for Alt-Delivery"
Computerworld: Federal data-protection law inches forward
Digital Transactions: How Banks Are Looking to Become Serious Players in P2P Payments
Your PIN is mightier than a pen with card payments
Voice Commerce Launches New Web Based Interface to Provide Easy Access to Voice-Based Authentication
MarketWatch: Credit cards gouge consumers ahead of new law
Seeking Alpha: Coinstar Inc. Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
Forbes.com: The Big Deal: Intuit's Brad Smith - Why he acquired Mint.com
Reuters: BofA-credit card loss rate could have peaked in Q3
GE Capital Retail Consumer Finance Extends Consumer Credit Card Program Partnership with JCPenney

Be Sure to Follow Payments News and Payments Views on Twitter

Payments News Editor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:46:59 -0800

Are you looking for real-time updates when new items are posted on PaymentsNews.com and PaymentsViews.com? The best way to receive them is to follow our Twitter feeds for PaymentsNews.com and for PaymentsViews.com. Over 1,200 payments professionals are now following our two Twitter feeds - if you're an avid Twitter use, feel free to join them!

New Job Openings on PaymentsJobs.com

Payments News Editor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:41:06 -0800

Three new job openings for payments professionals have recently been posted on PaymentsJobs.com:

Director, Product Implementation for Dynamics (New York City)
Technical Project Manager - Global Payments for Earthport USA (New York City)
Account Manager - Merchant e-Solutions (Redwood City, CA)

Are you hiring? Post your job openings on PaymentsJobs.com - $200 for a 30 day listing!

A Look at PayPal's Adaptive Accounts

Payments News Editor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:17:21 -0800

Over on our PaymentsViews.com sister blog, Glenbrook's Russ Jones shares his perspective on what he found to be the most interesting item to come of our PayPal's Developer Conference earlier this week: PayPal Adaptive Accounts.

Credit Unions Hop on the iPhone Bandwagon for Mobile Banking

Payments News Editor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:14:26 -0800

PSCU Financial Services, the nation's largest credit union service organization, has launched new iPhone and iPod touch mobile banking applications. According the PSCU, "his latest capability will help credit unions attract Gen Y and other member segments who are avid iPhone/iPod users. It also builds brand recognition through credit union logo visibility on the member's mobile device and customized iPhone application in the iTunes store."

Yesterday, CO-OP Financial Services announced that it has added the Apple iPhone to the roster of devices that can use its CO-OP Mobile banking software. Customers of credit unions served by CO-OP now can simply download the “CO-OP” application from the Apple iTunes Store to start performing mobile banking activity such as verifying balances, viewing transaction history and transfering funds between accounts.