MasterCard Inc. this week rolled out a service that lets users of MasterCard-branded prepaid cards pay bills at the card issuer’s Web site or by phone. Aimed squarely at the underbanked population, the service relies on the MasterCard RPPS network for links to biller accounting systems and Aliaswire Inc., a …

Credit-union representatives descended on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby Congress against proposed debit card interchange regulations in the Senate version of the sweeping financial-reform bill. On Wednesday, two frequent political enemies—banks and credit unions—will declare that they’ve stopped fighting each other so they can fight the so-called Durbin Amendment together. …

Acquisitive financial-institution processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc. on Monday said it has completed its $300 million buyout of iPay Technologies, a low-profile but fast-growing electronic bill-payment processor that will add substantial mass to Jack Henry’s already sizable bill-pay business. Monett, Mo.-based Jack Henry provides bill-pay services to 1,050 of …

Everyone knows data breaches are expensive and affect a lot of people, but just how much is startling. In a new analysis, Javelin Strategy & Research estimates credit and debit card issuers spent $252.7 million in 2009 replacing more than 70 million cards compromised by data breaches. Analyst Robert Vamosi …

Presenting yet another wave of petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of customers, the convenience-store industry turned up the heat on Congress Thursday to enact curbs on debit card interchange. The 1.68 million signed petitions, collected by Speedway SuperAmerica LLC and unveiled by the c-store chain and NACS, an industry …

With application developers rushing to bring apps to market for Apple Inc.’s immensely popular iPad tablet computer, payment service provider Square Inc. is predicting the iPad will become a game changer in wireless payments, and says that it will aggressively pursue developing iPad applications that enrich the transaction experience. The …

With the political debate about proposed federal regulation of debit card interchange and card-acceptance terms raging on, analyses of the so-called Durbin Amendment’s effects are emerging. Two new ones suggest consumers would see little or no benefit, if benefit were defined as lower retail prices because of merchants’ reduced card-acceptance …

Having seen a significant uplift in mobile-payments volume so far this year, PayPal Inc. along with developer partners have in the past few days unveiled new products and services that could accelerate the processor's growth in this nascent market. PayPal said it is providing payment processing for new mobile-storefront software …

With online bill payment evolving into a mainstream service from financial institutions, the demographic profile of its users also is beginning to look more mainstream, according to new survey results from bank processor Fiserv Inc. But the findings indicate that the bill-pay market’s rapid evolution means banks and credit unions …

Visa Inc. has “relaxed enforcement” of the July 1, 2010, deadline for petroleum retailers to install software that meets the so-called Triple Data Encryption Standard (also called 3DES or TDES) in response to requests from the major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, the card network said in a statement released this …