Two organizations that serve major U.S. banks are studying diverse mobile-payments projects around the world and hope to issue within the next 60 days recommendations for financial institutions to follow in this country. The effort, spearheaded by representatives of The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC and the Financial Services Technology …

The bank card networks are staking out major positions in the business of reloading prepaid debit cards, in a move that leverages their existing networks and could give a boost to efforts to bring electronic financial services to the underserved consumer market. At the same time, their entry into reloads …

10 Tipping Points for the Payments Industry Part 10 Years and years of finger-crossing while pushing ever-more unprotected financial account data across an expanding array of vulnerable origination points and networks have come to a sudden and long overdue demise. When and how the electronic payments industry finally gets serious …

As card data breaches continue to garner headlines, retailers may suffer the most in the eyes of U.S. consumers. Some 63% of consumers say merchants do the least to protect credit and debit card information, compared with 16% who say this about transaction processors and 5% who say Visa and …

Tempo Payments Inc., the PIN-debit alternative network for retailers, has signed another large gas-station/convenience-store chain to its issuing ranks. Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip Corp. will offer a rewards card program in a phased rollout beginning in the second quarter involving 50 stores in an unspecified market, Tempo announced this week. Privately …

Pay By Touch Inc., the San Francisco company best known for its biometric authentication system for point-of-sale transactions, this week saw its merchant-processing unit take a step calculated to extend its reach into new merchant markets and attract more independent sales organizations to resell its services. Under this week's agreement, …

With efforts by merchants to force down interchange rates picking up steam, the rapidly expanding prepaid card market will confront two very different outcomes should those efforts ultimately succeed, according to an expert on interchange. Cards issued by merchants would likely benefit, but those issued by banks would be hurt, …

A recent survey indicates debit card issuers may be overreacting to database breaches that compromise card data held by merchants. Nine out of 10 debit card issuers have received notice in the last few years that their cards could have been compromised in a breach, and of these, some 87% …

Digital games are ringing up solid increases in sales on mobile phones in the U.S., but face rising competition from emerging content like video and full-track music, according to a report released on Monday. Games sold on mobile operators' portals reached $151 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of …

PayPal Inc. will introduce a new service for its mobile-payments product, PayPal Mobile, that will allow users to make remote purchases from merchants that have mobile Web sites. Kevin Dulsky, senior director and general manager for PayPal Mobile, revealed the new service during a panel discussion at a prepaid card …