Competitive Strategies

The rocketing popularity of Google Inc.’s Android operating system for smart phones could also propel near-field communication (NFC) technology for mobile financial services now that NXP Semiconductor and Giesecke & Devrient have introduced NFC software for Android phones. The open-source code, announced this week at a major telecom conference in …

Despite being exempt from pending debit card interchange regulations, small banks seem to be convinced that their revenues are about to take a hit and are planning to raise account fees or reduce access to debit cards to compensate, according to survey results from the Independent Community Bankers of America. …

In a move that could open up a significant chunk of the desktop market for digitized check processing, Panini North America this week introduced what are apparently the first check scanners inherently capable of working with Apple Macintosh computers. The development “opens up a heretofore unreachable segment for remote deposit …

The payments industry’s long struggle to bring person-to-person payments to a mass market reached a new milestone in recent days with the addition of real-time settlement. Under an agreement announced late last week, the NYCE Payments Network LLC will offer CashEdge Inc.’s Popmoney person-to-person payments service to its financial-institution clients, …

With more consumers paying bills electronically than are receiving them that way, a startup that lets consumers receive and store digital copies of their bills announced on Tuesday it is introducing a payment service aimed at closing that gap. Seattle-based doxo Inc., which in October launched a document-management service modeled …

The drastic reduction in debit card interchange revenue mandated by the Durbin Amendment will be somewhat favorable for PayPal Inc., an official with the e-commerce processor’s parent company said on Wednesday. “In the short and the medium term, we believe it’ll probably be neutral to positive on our performance,” said …

It was an “I-told-you-so moment” Thursday morning for William A. Cooper, the outspoken chairman and chief executive of TCF Financial Corp. Cooper said many bankers dismissed TCF’s assertion that the Federal Reserve Board, in carrying out the dictates of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law’s Durbin Amendment, would cut debit card interchange …

Mobile payments are getting increasingly competitive, and this week the competition ratcheted up even more. Intuit Inc., maker of the QuickBooks accounting software for small businesses, is now offering a free credit card reader for smart phones to merchants using its GoPayment mobile service. Intuit also is waiving monthly service …

Following through on a tax-season initiative it announced last September, the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday launched a pilot program that could enable more than half a million low- and moderate-income individuals to receive tax refunds via prepaid cards. Next week, the Treasury Department will begin sending letters to 600,000 …

While the news in smart phones this week has been all about Verizon Wireless’s announcement that it will start marketing the iPhone next month, the news that may well be of more importance to mobile payments and mobile banking is the hot streak that Google Inc.’s Android operating system is …