Issuing/Originating

  Rebounding after abandoning plans to build a proprietary merchant network, the Isis mobile-payments joint venture of three leading telecommunications companies on Tuesday said it had enlisted the support of the four major general-purpose card networks in the U.S. The announcement marks an advance by the venture backed by AT&T, …

  n The first U.S. financial institution to introduce EMV cards, United Nations Federal Credit Union, released the results of a study along with Gemalto, the vendor of its cards. The study comes one year after the credit union launched its chip-and-PIN credit cards. As a result of the study, …

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  Some 49% of debit card holders would either stop using their cards or use them less often if their issuers slapped a $1-to-$2 monthly fee on their checking accounts in return for unlimited usage, and another 25% would close their accounts altogether, according to consumer research released this week. …

  With issuers and program managers having come under fire in recent months for allegedly high and numerous consumer fees for prepaid products, American Express Co. on Tuesday launched a reloadable prepaid card that levies no activation or maintenance fees. It also charges no reload fee when value is loaded …

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Charge volumes for some major payments-industry players, including American Express Co. and U.S. Bancorp, grew by double digits in the first quarter, an indication that consumer spending is recovering and generating more revenue-producing transactions for merchant acquirers. –American Express’s growth was especially strong. The company reported Wednesday that U.S. card-billed …

Banks are likely to become much more active as issuers of reloadable prepaid cards in response to new regulations that are making traditional bank accounts more expensive for consumers, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. “There’s an opportunity for banks to use prepaid as an account-replacement …

Once avoided as a money-loser, person-to-person payments are picking up momentum, with Discover Financial Services as the latest entrant. Discover’s Money Messenger service, which went live Monday, allows cardholders to send cash to anyone with a PayPal account. Recipients who aren’t PayPal customers can set up an account quickly via …

Consumers have few expectations that they’ll benefit from pending debit card interchange price regulations, according to new survey findings from Javelin Strategy and Research. And, with consumers used to free checking and debit cards, banks will need to move carefully if they want to impose new fees to make up …