Credit Cards

While American consumers were flocking to the stores on Friday and whipping out their credit and debit cards for payment, their Canadian counterparts were forced to find cash, their checkbooks, or to come back later because the network of the nation's largest merchant acquirer went down for two and a …

U.S. Bancorp reported this week that it would start testing Visa Contactless credit cards by the end of the month in the Denver area. The test will involve an undisclosed number of cardholders who would be able to use the cards equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips at about 600 …

Seeking to take some of the complexity out of medical payments and at the same time increase transaction volume, American Express Co. and processor Metavante Corp. have teamed up with insurance giant Cigna Corp. for a planned 2007 rollout of a system they claim will let patients know how much …

Online merchants' fraud losses will hit $3 billion in 2006, up 7% over last year, but the overall growth in e-commerce means fraud as a proportion of sales will dip slightly, to 1.4% from 1.6%. This mixed news comes as Web merchants adopt an increasing array of alternatives to bank-issued …

In the latest of its so-called Data Security Alerts aimed at strengthening merchant payment card security, Visa USA is putting the spotlight on point-of-sale systems that provide electronic on-ramps for fraudsters. In particular, Visa wants merchants to remedy the vulnerabilities of what it calls “improperly segmented network environments.” Merchants can …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s decision to accept MasterCard Worldwide credit cards?but not credit cards from Visa USA–at its 500-plus Sam's Club stores stems from competitive forces in the warehouse retailing business, but may also signal the beginning of the end of uniformity of merchant acceptance of the two bank card brands. …

In another indication that the days may be numbered for premium short-message service (SMS) as the dominant mobile-commerce payment channel, some 65% of executives in the entertainment, media, mobile, and broadband industries surveyed at a recent conference agreed that payments handled as direct charges by operators' billing systems will be …

With credit and debit cards accounting for nearly 46% of supermarket payments, card-acceptance fees now rank No. 2 behind energy costs among the top concerns of grocery-store executives, the Food Marketing Institute reports in its latest financial review of the grocery industry's financial health. In its 2005-2006 Annual Financial Review …

Fresh on the heels of a payment-processing initiative and a new branding campaign, the new chief executive of prepaid and fleet card specialist Comdata Corp.'s parent company told investors on Thursday that Comdata is in the acquisitions market. “The Comdata business is posting strong results driven by a proven, effective …

First Data Corp. chairman and chief executive Henry C. “Ric” Duques on Tuesday painted a rosy picture of the downsized card processor during his first earnings conference call since the recent spin-off of First Data's largest division, remittance kingpin Western Union Co. Greenwood Village, Colo.-based First Data posted net income …