Saturday , December 14, 2024

Issuing/Originating

Fraud And Overdraft Regs Threaten Debit Card Profitability

Debit cards are more popular than ever, but issuers see threats to the bottom line from rising fraud and more regulation. Loss rates rose 43% on signature debit cards and 24% for PIN-debit cards in 2009, according to the Pulse EFT network’s fifth-annual survey of the debit market. Meanwhile, issuers …

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Eye on Mobile: Wells Rolls out Alerts; Arkansas First in M-Payments

News about the latest developments in the hot mobile-payments sector is coming from some familiar sources, such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Visa Inc., and some unlikely ones, such as the state of Arkansas. Wells Fargo is rolling out Visa's text-message and e-mail alert service that lets credit card …

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BofA’s Move on Debit Card Overdrafts Could Herald Big Revenue Drain

Bank of America Corp.'s decision to stop offering overdraft protection on debit card transactions casts a spotlight on billions of dollars in fee revenue issuers earn from cardholders that could drain away if the bank's move becomes a trend. It could also be a harbinger of a move by consumers …

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U.S. Issuers Begin to Fret About Mag-Stripe Problems Overseas

U.S. card issuers are starting to worry about problems some of their high-spending and corporate card customers are having using their magnetic-stripe cards in countries that support the chip-and-PIN standard, according to executives who spoke on Tuesday at a smart card conference. Whereas the issue hardly seemed apparent only a …

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TSYS Aims to Tap Growing Debit Trend with Its New Hybrid Card

Here's one way credit card issuers could win back some popularity in an increasingly debit card world: make credit cards function like debit cards. That's the essence of a new product from processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), which last week unveiled its TSYS Hybrid card. The patent-pending product enables …

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Discover Continues Its Zip Trial But Stays Mum About Any Rollout

A Discover Financial Services employee test of contactless payment stickers for mobile devices that started in April 2009 will continue, according to a Discover executive. But Discover is being coy about if and when it or its card-issuing partners will roll out Discover's Zip contactless brand on a wide scale. …

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The Latest Forecast Is Especially Sunny for Prepaid Cards

Credit card charge volumes have fallen this year and debit card volumes, while still in positive territory, are running far below the growth rates they enjoyed before the recession hit. But prepaid cards remain the one bright spot, according to a new market analysis from Mercator Advisory Group Inc. Maynard, …

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How the Rise of Smart Phones Could Unleash a Wave of Fraud

The increasing popularity of smart phones, which has given a big lift this year to consumer adoption of mobile banking and payments, has brought with it an ominous new threat of fraud. Last week, the Dutch security firm XS4All reported on a worm that infects iPhones and allows hackers to …

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Reducing Interchange Would ‘Pose Challenges,’ the GAO Says

If merchants on the one side and bank card issuers and payment card networks on the other were looking for endorsements of their opposing positions about interchange, they didn't get them Thursday when the Government Accountability Office issued a long-awaited report about the controversial fee. The GAO, the investigative arm …

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Card Problems Cost U.S. Issuers Hundreds of Millions Overseas

U.S. payment card issuers missed out on nearly $4 billion in charge volume in 2008, including $78.7 million in interchange, because of problems cardholders had with their cards while traveling abroad, according to a new report by Aite Group LLC. The default response when travelers have a card problem is …

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