Issuing/Originating

Tussles between vendors and financial institutions over data security are slowing down progress in contactless payment based on mobile phones, a research firm contends. While MasterCard Worldwide, Visa USA, and major banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have launched trials of handset-based contactless payment in the U.S. …

Consumers' willingness to pay credit card bills online is rising rapidly, with 524 million transactions in 2006, a 27% jump over 414 million payments in 2005, according to survey data from comScore Inc. The most recent online payment volume, which represents payments consumers make at card issuers' Web sites, is …

Capital One Financial Corp.’s decision to buy prepaid card processor NetSpend Corp. comes at a time when the network-branded prepaid card market is rapidly expanding and close on the heels of Cap One’s market-changing move into debit cards that can be held by consumers with accounts at any bank (Digital …

Traditional private-label credit cards steadily lost ground over the past two decades to general-purpose payment cards that have much greater utility. Despite the retreat, retailers still like private-label cards because their key attribute?holders tend to shop more often and buy more than non-cardholders?apparently is still valid. Now a new service …

Confirming long-standing industry speculation, Columbus, Ga.-based bank-holding company Synovus Financial Corp. on Tuesday said it would consider spinning off its processing subsidiary, Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), to Synovus shareholders. Assuming a spin-off eventually happens, TSYS will have played a key role in 2007's major processing-industry restructuring that will take …

With an eye to Capital One Financial Corp.'s introduction last month of a so-called decoupled debit card product, which relies on settlement through the automated clearing house network and so does not require cardholders to have a demand-deposit account with Cap One (Digital Transactions News, June 7), debit network sponsor …

Image-exchange networks and the financial institutions that use them to process checks electronically may have to contend with a dwindling supply of checks sooner than they expected. For the time being, the networks are doing a robust business, with the volume of items expected to more than quadruple this year, …

Discover Financial Services LLC, whose shares began trading on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, is finally on its own as a corporate entity for the first time in its 22-year- history. But while the spin-off from parent company Morgan Stanley is complete, Discover's mission of gaining market share …

In a move that could give the market for network-branded prepaid cards a big boost, Parago Inc. has launched a campaign to move its clients from checks to one-time-use cards for rebates and cash incentives. The Dallas-based company, which manages consumer rebate and rewards programs for corporations, hopes to have …

A new Capital One Financial Corp. MasterCard debit card that Cap One can market nationwide like a credit card has the potential to vault the financial-services company into the top ranks of debit card issuers and help MasterCard Worldwide swipe debit market share from Visa USA, the payments expert who …