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Banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co. has begun issuing EMV debit cards, with plans to convert its entire debit card portfolio of 34 million cards to chip by the end of 2016, Chase announced Tuesday. Chase began testing chip-enabled debit card issuance in Arizona and Illinois two months …
Read More »Dining, Travel and Household Needs Fueling Retail Sales Growth: Visa
Consumers continued to make retailer tills ring in the first quarter, increasing sales, minus automobiles and fuel purchases, at a 4.5% growth rate over the same period in 2014, finds Visa Inc.’s latest Retail Spending Monitor. Overall retail sales growth, include automobile sales, was a modest 1.2%. The largest …
Read More »Research Shows How Durbin Torpedoed Visa And MasterCard’s PIN Debit Traffic
By John Stewart The Durbin Amendment’s transaction-routing requirements, which have been in effect now for three years, are widely thought to have benefited merchants by increasing competition for debit card traffic. But PIN debit networks that aren’t owned by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. were expected to benefit as well …
Read More »Costco Gets a Lift by Adding Card Acceptance to Food Courts
By Jim Daly Warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. has been in the news recently because it is replacing American Express Co. with Visa Inc. and Citigroup Inc. as its major-brand payment card partners. But a little-noticed change in its U.S. stores’ food courts shows what can happen when a retailer adds …
Read More »Younger Consumers Inclined To Choose Debit, Especially for the Rewards
Debit-rewards programs offered by banks appear to be rebounding a little, with younger consumers more motivated than other age groups to use them. That’s according to a new report from payments-research firm Mercator Advisory Group Inc. Debit rewards programs fell out of favor with banks following passage of the Durbin …
Read More »As P2P’s Popularity Shoots Upward, Facebook Enters the Game With Messenger
The viral popularity of peer-to-peer payments among younger consumers hasn’t gone unnoticed at the massive social networks that serve their needs for instant communication. Facebook Inc. on Tuesday said it has introduced a P2P payments service on its Messenger platform and will be rolling it out across the country “over …
Read More »Eye on ATMs: BMO Harris Bank’s New Cardless App; Diebold Buys Software Maker
Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank on Monday unveiled a mobile app for cardless ATM cash withdrawals and claimed it has the nation’s largest network of ATMs configured for smart-phone-based withdrawals. Meanwhile, ATM manufacturer Diebold Inc. said it bought a Canadian software company as part of a strategy to offer more software-based …
Read More »With EMV’s Rise, Debit Card Fraud on Canada’s Interac Network Falls to a New Low
Counterfeit fraud on Canada’s Interac debit cards fell 45% to a record low in 2014, and 80% of the fraud happened outside of Canada, according to new figures from Toronto-based Interac Association. The five-year slide in skimming-related fraud coincides with the rise of EMV smart cards in Canada as well …
Read More »Cardtronics Finds Banks To Fill Part of Its Chase ATM Void
Leading retail ATM network owner Cardtronics Inc. has already found banks ready to put their brands on 40% of the Cardtronics ATMs that until recently bore the JPMorgan Chase & Co. brand, chief executive Steve Rathgaber told analysts Wednesday. Chase informed Houston-based Cardtronics about three months ago that it planned …
Read More »Eye on Processors: EMV Card Orders Boost FIS; Fiserv’s Debit Business Grows
Orders for Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) smart cards rolled in for bank and payment processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) in the fourth quarter while rival Fiserv Inc. saw increases in its multi-faceted payments business. Jacksonville, Fla.-based FIS on Thursday reported $647.2 million in fourth-quarter revenues from its Payment Solutions Group …
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