Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Closed-loop prepaid cards held their own in 2010, growing by 13% in loads to $261.2 billion from $230.3 billion in 2009, according to Mercator Advisory Group Inc.’s newly released industry study. In fact, the closed-loop market, which while bigger in loads but slower growing than the newer, general-purpose or …
Read More »Fifth Third’s Credit/Debit Card: A Response to Customers, But Also Suited to Durbin
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Read More »New Debit Card Usage Fees Raise Questions About Their Stickiness
Banks are likely to continue testing debit card usage fees in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s new price controls on debit interchange, though such fees are generating heated debate about whether they make good business sense. “Disincenting consumers to use debit cards I just think is a terrible strategy …
Read More »Wells Takes a Chance on a Monthly Fee for Debit Card Purchases
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Read More »Volatile Markets Hammer Payments Stocks, But Prepaid Players Most of All
The wild trading on stock markets worldwide over the past week has left U.S. payments-industry shares battered and bruised, though they made a mild recovery Thursday morning. Worst hit are shares of prepaid card companies, though networks, processors, and money-transfer providers are feeling the pain too. A Digital Transactions …
Read More »New Rule To Fight Prepaid Money Laundering Mostly Exempts Closed-Loop Cards
Federal regulators on Tuesday issued their final rule for preventing terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals from using prepaid cards for money laundering. The new rule from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) subjects merchants and other non-bank entities that sell or manage prepaid cards to some …
Read More »Isis Now Counts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, And AmEx As Network Partners
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, …
Read More »Eye on EMV: UNFCU Study, Aite Survey, Jack Henry Service
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, …
Read More »With the Fed’s Debit Rule in Place, Anti-Durbin Crusader TCF Throws in the Towel
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Read More »Issuers Eyeing Fees for Debit Can Expect Cardholder Backlash, Survey Shows
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. …
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