Banks are likely to become much more active as issuers of reloadable prepaid cards in response to new regulations that are making traditional bank accounts more expensive for consumers, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. “There’s an opportunity for banks to use prepaid as an account-replacement …

The freeze in U.S. bank card interchange rates, confirmed Wednesday by Visa Inc. for its network and last week by MasterCard Inc., is obviously good news for merchants and not-so-great news for credit and debit card issuers. But, somewhat surprisingly, it may not be all that welcome by merchant acquirers …

The government clamped down on Internet gambling on Friday with the Federal Bureau of Investigation seizing the domain names of the three leading Internet poker sites doing business in the U.S. and prosecutors announcing indictments against 11 defendants, including principals of the gambling sites and a Utah banker. The government …

Once avoided as a money-loser, person-to-person payments are picking up momentum, with Discover Financial Services as the latest entrant. Discover’s Money Messenger service, which went live Monday, allows cardholders to send cash to anyone with a PayPal account. Recipients who aren’t PayPal customers can set up an account quickly via …

Think Computer Corp., the startup behind the FaceCash mobile-payments system, has launched a browser-based point-of-sale register in an effort ease FaceCash integration for merchants. “The register lets any small business turn a Web browser into a cash register,” says Aaron Greenspan, Think’s chief executive and president. The product, which has …

MasterCard Inc.’s new interchange schedule is out, and it contains no changes in consumer debit card rates or the transaction volume thresholds that many rates require. Normally, no change means no news, but in the highly charged world of interchange, anything the payment card networks do or don’t do is …

Displaying its newfound mobile-payments fervor for the second time in just over a fortnight, American Express Co. on Wednesday announced it was investing in a startup called Payfone Inc. and would integrate Payfone’s technology with its new Serve mobile-pay platform. Founded in 2008, New York City-based Payfone uses a consumer’s …

Secure Vault Payments will announce a mobile application next month for the U.S. market, a top executive with the online-payments service tells Digital Transactions News. The mobile application, which will work on Apple, Android, and BlackBerry smart-phone systems, will start with a pilot in the fall and be in commercial …

Regulatory pressures, the public’s lack of awareness of prepaid cards, and negative publicity from consumer groups and the media are weighing on prepaid card executives’ minds, according to new findings from Aite Group LLC. Researchers from Boston-based Aite polled 24 senior executives during March’s Prepaid Expo USA conference in Orlando, …

U.S. debit card holders received cash back on just over 1 billion point-of-sale purchases in 2009, according to new figures from the Federal Reserve. That statistical nugget and others in the Fed’s 2010 Payments Study help to explain why ATM operators are struggling to keep transaction volumes up. The Fed …