News

December, 2005

• 21 December

  Holiday Card Spending Ramps up in Stores And on the Internet

  The week ended Dec. 18 included three of the four heaviest spending days of the holiday shopping season so far, according to the latest report from Visa USA. Spending on Visa-branded cards totaled $5.2 billion on Dec. 16, ranking that day the busiest of the season. Black Friday, the day …
• 21 December

  In a Busy Day, BofA Says Yes to AmEx Network And No to TSYS

  Bank of America Corp. announced today it will begin issuing cards on American Express Co.'s U.S. merchant network and also confirmed that an existing issuing relationship between AmEx and MBNA Corp., which BofA is acquiring for $35 billion, will continue. In a separate announcement, third-party credit card account processor TSYS …
• 21 December

  TextPayMe Aims Its Nascent Cell-Phone P-to-P Service at Web Markets

  A tiny startup in Redmond, Wash., has signed up about 500 users for its week-old person-to-person payment service based on mobile phones and expects to launch a commercial service in 2006. With a head count of three, including two former Microsoft Corp. employees, TextPayMe Inc. allows individuals with cell phones …
• 20 December

  Phishing E-mail Volume Sets a New Record After a Summer Swoon

  The phishing scourge made a comeback in October, hitting a new record level after three straight months of decline. The number of reported, unique phishing e-mails came to 15,820, up 17% from the 13,562 reported in September, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of electronic payment companies, software …
• 20 December

  Citi Will Begin Issuing Credit Cards on AmEx’s Network By Month’s End

  In a move that has been expected for more than a year, Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank unit announced today it will begin issuing cards on the American Express Co. network by the end of the month. The full offering, which includes five cards with varying benefits, will be available by mid-January. …
• 16 December

  Digital Defense Group Set to Launch a Fingerprint-Secured RFID Card

  An Omaha, Neb.-based maker of biometrically secured identity cards says it expects to participate in contactless-payment pilots within three months, with a commercial rollout possible by mid-2006. Five-year-old Digital Defense Group says its credit-card-size token, which contains a fingerprint sensor and an RFID chip, is compliant with MasterCard International's PayPass …
• 16 December

  ATM Direct Says It Will Test PIN Debit on the Web Next Year

  A technology that allows consumers to use their debit cards and PINs to buy items on the Internet will likely undergo tests with at least one electronic funds transfer network starting the first half of 2006. A full commercial rollout involving at least one major merchant should be in progress …
• 14 December

  Atlanta NFC Pilot, And Others, Will Lead to Late ’06 Commercialization

  An Atlanta test of mobile-phone payments, mobile downloads, and other applications, announced today, is the first major U.S. test of near-field communication (NFC) for functions like contactless payments, but it won't be the last. Mohammad Khan, president and founder of ViVOtech Inc., which is supplying handset-based wallet software and contactless …
• 13 December

  BitPass’s New CEO Hints MSN Deal Could Be Just the Start with Microsoft

  BitPass Inc.'s agreement with Microsoft Corp. to process payments for digital content sold through regional sites operated by Microsoft's MSN portal may be just the start of a broader payments relationship with the Redmond, Wash. computing giant, says Douglas S. Knopper, BitPass's newly hired chief executive. Knopper, who joined Menlo …
• 12 December

  Corillian Looks to Sell Banks on Least-Cost Routing for Bill Payments

  Online-banking-software provider Corillian Corp. is planning to sell banks on housing their own bill-payment data and using a variety of processors, rather than relying on those processors as exclusive providers of data-warehousing and transaction processing. Hillsboro, Ore.-based Corillian, which earlier this year acquired InteliData Technologies Corp., a vendor of data-warehousing …