Debit Cards

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 …

This spring’s settlement between the bank-owned card associations and retailers led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been widely interpreted as a blow to the fortunes of so-called PIN-based debit, or debit card transactions effected by a consumer’s personal identification number rather than his signature. That’s because the settlement terms required …