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In a vote of confidence for smart card technology in North America, a leading producer of chip-embedded plastic cards has achieved full production of the technologies necessary for smart cards at a plant outside Baltimore. Axalto Holding NV, a France-based card manufacturer, says this is the first time such full-scale …
Read More »ATMIA Sets up New Group to Tackle Prepaid, Other Debit Card Issues
Card issuers' uncertainties surrounding such issues as prepaid debit, debit card fraud, and the future flow of interchange income have led a major ATM industry trade group to form a new organization to represent issuers' interests. The Debit Council of the ATM Industry Association held its first meeting today at …
Read More »Remittance Cards Will Top 1 Million in 2006, New Report Says
The number of Visa- and MasterCard-branded money-transfer cards issued in the U.S. will reach 1.1 million in 2006, up from 400,000 this year and just 145,000 in 2004, according to a new research study on the remittance market. The jump in the number of the prepaid cards follows the increasing …
Read More »QSR and Debit Gains Among Highlights for MasterCard in ’04
MasterCard International reports its U.S. dollar volume on transactions on all of its products except online debit cards grew 11.5% in the fourth quarter last year, to $188.5 billion, while U.S. volume for 2004 as a whole expanded by 9.3%, to $695.9 billion. Total MasterCard purchase and cash transactions in …
Read More »Discover Scores a Volume Coup with GE/Wal-Mart Network Deal
Discover Financial Services Inc.'s deal with GE Consumer Finance Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will lead to a huge volume boost for Discover and help the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company offer pricing to potential issuing partners that exceeds the interchange income they can get from Visa and MasterCard, an expert observer …
Read More »WaMu’s Move to MasterCard Underlines Intense Card Competition
Washington Mutual Inc.'s decision to switch its 10.5-million-card debit portfolio to MasterCard International from Visa U.S.A., though a big win for MasterCard, doesn't necessarily herald a trend, observers say. At the same time, it throws into relief a bylaw Visa quietly put into place in 2003 that penalizes large debit-card-issuing …
Read More »AmEx-Citi Is Great PR for AmEx, But How Profitable Will It Really Be?
Citigroup Inc.'s decision to issue American Express cards may turn out to be a more symbolic than substantive victory in the credit card wars for AmEx, according to some observers. “It's clearly a victory, but more a marketing victory,” says Gwenn Bezard, a payments-industry analyst at New York-based research firm …
Read More »Between 10% and 15% of Debit Card Holders Pay PIN Fees, Says Fed
About 14% of financial institutions that issue debit cards charge fees for PIN debit transactions, and in the past year 15% of debit card holders were subject to the fees, with somewhere between 10% and 15% of customers actually paying them. Fewer than 1% of banks, meanwhile, assess fees to …
Read More »AmEx’s Big Lawsuit: A Power Play Through the Banks?
American Express Co. Inc.'s decision to include eight banks as defendants in the lawsuit it filed earlier this week against Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. may be a power play to weaken the bank card networks by widening policy differences between the networks and their major members, some …
Read More »Discover’s Aims in Signature Debit Lie Behind Its Pulse Deal
Discover Financial Service's Inc.'s proposed acquisition of the Pulse EFT network, announced yesterday (Digital Transactions News, Nov. 15), hands the Riverwoods, Ill.-based card company instant credibility in the business of PIN debit, but it also may propel Discover's efforts to break into the high-growth signature-debit card arena. Discover, apparently encouraged …
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