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With an eye to giving credit and debit card holders a measure of greater control, MasterCard Inc. unveiled a new alert feature that provides issuers with verifiable data about a cardholder’s location. That can help prevent authorization refusals, for example, when the cardholder travels. Available now in the United Kingdom, and …
Read More »A New Visa Tool Enables Transaction Limits for Credit, Debit, And Prepaid Cards
Visa Inc. has launched Visa Consumer Transaction Controls, a service that lets Visa-card issuing institutions offer cardholders the ability to set transaction limits with their credit, debit, and prepaid cards. Visa says it works with more than 14,000 financial institutions, but does not provide a U.S.-specific total. Announced Tuesday, the …
Read More »MasterCard Posts Growth for Fourth Quarter And 2015 U.S. Purchase Volume And Cards
MasterCard Inc. on Friday said purchase volume made with its U.S.-issued credit and debit cards grew by 8.7% in the fourth quarter and 7.7% for all of 2015, compared with the same periods a year ago. MasterCard also said the number of U.S.-issued credit and debit cards increased. In the …
Read More »Focusing on Big Banks And Merchants, ACI Sells Its E-Banking Unit to Fiserv
Payments-technology provider ACI Worldwide Inc. said it plans to sell its Community Financial Services (CFS) unit to bank processor Fiserv Inc. for $200 million in cash. CFS, which provides online and mobile banking and payments and security services to community banks and credit unions, generated about 22% of ACI’s $1.02 …
Read More »AmEx Plans $1 Billion in Cost Cuts As Part of an Effort to Rebound From a Sub-Par 2015
In 2015, American Express Co. had a bad year. Hit hard by competitive pressures on merchant fees and cobrand-card returns, as well as swooning gasoline prices, the big card network on Thursday reported a 4% decline in revenue net of interest expense for the year to $32.8 billion, its first …
Read More »Struggling With Mobile Services, Banks Risk Losing Customers to Non-Bank Rivals
Consumers using mobile-banking sites or apps make only sporadic use of their ability to pay bills, send money to other individuals, or load a prepaid card, finds new research from Javelin LLC, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based payments-research firm. In the “2015 Mobile Banking, Smartphone, and Tablet Forecast” released Tuesday, Javelin found …
Read More »Security Issues Lead Young Adults And High Earners to Look Askance at Debit Cards
Young adults and high earners have something in common. Both consumer groups are less likely than consumers overall to use debit cards, according to a report released Tuesday by Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The report, “Consumers and Debit in the U.S.: Heightened Security Concerns,” canvassed more than 3,000 U.S. adults …
Read More »Working with Card Issuers, Tender Armor Offers an Anti-Fraud Tool for E-Commerce
Newly launched Tender Armor hopes its CvvPlus product can help issuers, merchants, and consumers combat the risk from fraudulent card-not-present transactions, the company announced Wednesday. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company says CvvPlus can help stem online fraud by providing a daily card verification code that is not printed on a …
Read More »With a Peak Performance in 2015, Merchant-Acquiring Stocks Look to a Sustainable 2016: Report
Publicly-held merchant acquirers were the best-performing payments stocks of 2015, investment-advisory firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods says in its “2016 Outlook: Pay for Growth in This Environment” report released Tuesday. Among the acquirers and processors KBW tracks are PayPal Holdings Inc., Global Payments Inc., Vantiv Inc., Heartland Payment Systems …
Read More »Attorneys Announce $39 Million Settlement for Target Data-Breach Class Action
Attorneys for financial-institution plaintiffs suing Target Corp. to recoup their costs arising from Target’s massive 2013 data breach announced a $39.4 million settlement on Wednesday intended to bring their class-action lawsuit against the big-box retailer to an end. A U.S. District Court judge in St. Paul, Minn., was expected to …
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