Debit Cards

While First Data Corp. vows to contest action by the Department of Justice to stop its acquisition of Concord EFS, industry observers say the Denver-based processing giant may have good reason to fight for a stronger position in the market for debit transactions secured by personal identification numbers. The $7.3 …

Arguing that the transaction would stifle competition in the market for transactions secured with personal identification numbers, the Department of Justice filed suit today to stop a proposed $7.3 billion acquisition of Concord EFS by First Data Corp. Officials of Justice's antitrust division argued that the merger would weaken competition …

A company offering a biometric-based technology that allows consumers to pay at the point of sale without presenting a card, keyfob, token, or any other payment media has installed a new management team and is laying plans for a major expansion in 2004. San Francisco-based Pay By Touch is running …

After an acrimonious summer in which TCF Financial Corp. first complained about the costly Visa/MasterCard settlement in the Wal-Mart case, and then complained even more bitterly when Visa threatened to levy a penalty on TCF if it switched debit brands, the Minneapolis-based bank has come to terms with Visa and …

Issuers of debit cards tied to flexible-spending accounts may be breathing a sigh of relief now that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) unit of the federal Department of Health & Human Services has sent a letter to a marketer of one such card exempting its product from …

The state of Iowa is in the final stages of its statewide rollout of debit cards to recipients in the state’s food-stamp program, a year later than an Oct. 1, 2002, deadline mandated for all states in federal legislation passed in 1996. Only California among the 50 states now remains …

NetBank Inc., which bills itself as the nation’s first commercially successful Internet bank, has agreed to acquire privately held Financial Technologies Inc., for cash and $1 million in restricted stock. Tommy Glenn, Jr., founder and president of FTI, says in a statement released today that the combination with NetBank will …

A technology firm is rolling out an Internet-based debit-card shopping program that relies on merchants to foot the cost of card readers. The program developed by Atlanta-based Kryptosima, a subsidiary of InstaPay Systems, will start with the Armed Forces Financial Network (AFFN) electronic funds transfer network and several large online …

Does the motion filed last week by MasterCard in federal court against Visa signal a new era of real competition between the two card companies? The answer seems to be yes, but the question is whether it’s healthy competition. The motion seeks to stop Visa from enacting a “settlement fee” …

First Data Corp. has announced that a shareholder vote on its proposed merger with Concord EFS Inc. will take place Oct. 28 in Englewood, Colo., where the giant transaction-processing company is based. First Data announced its proposed all-stock acquisition of Concord EFS, a major electronic-funds-transfer processor and operator of the …