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Citigroup Inc. on Wednesday announced it has struck a definitive agreement to sell its institutional Prepaid Card Services unit to Munich, Germany-based Wirecard AG. The deal is significant in that it will give Europe’s second-largest payment processor a toehold in the U.S., and it marks the retreat by another big …
Read More »After Deciding “To Capitulate” to Visa, Kroger Sues the Network Over EMV Transaction Routing
The Kroger Co. on Monday sued Visa Inc. over the network’s alleged efforts to force the nation’s leading grocery-store chain to route EMV chip debit card transactions over Visa’s network by having customers sign for purchases rather than enter PINs. Kroger, the largest retailer after Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to …
Read More »Payments Stocks Flattened Again as Brexit Downdraft Grows
A second day of market turmoil in the wake of the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union once again took a big bite out of stocks of U.S.-based payments companies with large operations in the U.K. and Europe. For example, on a day when the major market indexes …
Read More »The Stop-and-Start State of Virtual-Currency Regulation
Regulation of virtual currency at the state level is proving to be a stop-and-start affair. No other state has yet followed New York with its now famous “BitLicense” to regulate virtual currencies under existing law. But in North Carolina, a bill to update the state’s money-transmitter act could become …
Read More »Brexit Vote Bashes U.S. Payments Companies; Long-Term Effects Unclear
Shares of U.S. payments companies fell even farther than the general market Friday as the world absorbed the news from Thursday’s stunning “Brexit” vote in the United Kingdom in which British voters signaled they want to leave the European Union. Whether today’s market carnage is a sign of future long-term …
Read More »Eye on EMV: Chip Card Counts Grows by 1.4 Billion; Discover Streamlines EMV Processes
With the U.S. EMV transition just getting into high gear, the number of EMV chip cards worldwide increased last year by 1.4 billion, or 41%, the EMVCo standards body reported Thursday. Meanwhile, Discover Financial Services joined the other three U.S. general-purpose payment card networks in taking steps to speed up …
Read More »Canada’s MintChip Digital Currency Goes Live at Toronto Stores and Restaurants
MintChip, a digital cash replacement, went live Tuesday with a handful of retailers and restaurants in a trendy Toronto neighborhood. Canadians anywhere also can use MintChip for peer-to-peer payments. A loyalty and payment-services startup called nanoPay Corp. bought MintChip, which was developed by the Royal Canadian Mint, early this year. …
Read More »Costco’s Switch From American Express to Visa and Citi Set for This Weekend
One of the biggest changeovers in the history of general-purpose credit cards is set for this weekend when warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. stops accepting American Express Co. cards and begins taking Visa Inc. cards. In an email to its customer-members this week, Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco said to “mark your …
Read More »Home Depot Antitrust Suit Challenges Networks over Chip Cards and Visa’s FANF
The Home Depot Inc.’s new lawsuit against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. makes many of the same antitrust allegations that other merchants have lodged against the big networks in recent years. The suit, however, is notable for asking the court to quash Visa’s Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) and, like …
Read More »Visa Claims Analytics Service Cuts Fuel-Pump Fraud in Half
Visa Inc. on Tuesday reported that gas stations using a service it introduced two years ago to prevent card fraud at fuel pumps has reduced counterfeit fraud by 54%. Visa says that more than 35,000 U.S. gas stations now use its Visa Transaction Advisor technology at the pump, and that …
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