News

January, 2013

• 22 January

  Concerns About Need for Open Chip Card Standard Prompted Letter, X9 Says

  An effort by a U.S. standards body to gauge interest in a meeting to discuss an open-standard alternative to EMV for chip cards stems primarily from the organization’s concern that EMV’s specifications are not commonly owned by the payments industry, the body’s top executive says. “EMV is a proprietary standard, …
• 18 January

  Eye on Volumes: American Express, Chase Paymentech, Bank of America, U.S. Bank

  Some of the biggest payments companies and debit card issuers this week reported their latest volumes and related data along with their fourth-quarter financials. • American Express Co. late Thursday reported that U.S. card-billed business grew 7% to $155.5 billion from $145.5 billion in 2011’s last quarter. International volume increased …
• 18 January

  MasterCard Proposes a Durbin Solution for EMV, But Will EFT Execs Buy It?

  MasterCard Inc. on Friday proposed a solution that it says would allow merchant acquirers to route EMV debit transactions in compliance with a federal law mandating that merchants have a choice of networks. Under the proposal, MasterCard would open a proprietary application identifier (AID) associated with its Maestro brand to …
• 17 January

  As EMV Picks up Steam, A Standards Group Asks About Interest in an Open Alternative

    Just when most payments executives had concluded EMV was the only game in town for chip cards in the United States, a financial-services standards committee has issued a proposal for a meeting to examine the case for an open, industry-based alternative. In a letter dated Jan. 20 and obtained …
• 16 January

  PayPal Says Discover Deal ‘on Track,’ Gets Set to Promote POS Service to Consumers

  A buoyant John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay Inc., said on Wednesday that PayPal Inc.’s launch on the Discover Network is “on track” to begin toward the end of the second quarter. A key part of eBay unit PayPal’s strategy to bring its payment service to the physical point of …
• 15 January

  Shazam Launches Its Bolts App, With Debit-Based P2P Transactions To Come

  The Shazam debit network on Monday took a step closer to entering the fray for near real-time person-to-person payments with the launch of its Shazam Bolts mobile app. The app, which works on smart phones and tablets running Apple Inc.’s iOS software, will initially enable financial-institution customers to receive alerts …
• 15 January

  Green Dot’s New Mobile App Could Crack a Few Bluebird Eggs

  Prepaid card program manager Green Dot Corp. launched its GoBank mobile-banking application Tuesday. The app gives struggling Green Dot a powerful weapon to fight competitors for underbanked consumers or those simply dissatisfied with mainstream banks, including American Express Co., issuer of the new, low-fee Bluebird prepaid card account for customers …
• 12 January

  CEO Judge’s Sudden Retirement Casts a Cloud of Uncertainty Over First Data

  Citing health reasons, First Data Corp. chief executive Jonathan J. Judge on Friday announced plans to retire. The unexpected retirement casts a cloud of uncertainty over the nation’s largest payment processor as it competes in a fast-changing payments industry and, down the road, prepares for a possible IPO or sale …
• 10 January

  U.S. Bank Pairs a Rewards Card With iPhone-Based NFC Payments in Two Test Cities

    U.S. Bancorp is joining the ranks of banks and tech companies testing near-field communication (NFC) technology by pairing a rewards credit card account with Apple Inc.’s iPhone in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Portland, Ore. The Minneapolis-based banking company is offering new holders of its FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa …
• 9 January

  Crimped Financials Drive Dramatic New Acquirer Priority on PCI Revenue

  In sharp contrast to only a year ago, independent sales organizations and other merchant acquirers now rank revenue generation as their number-one goal for programs they offer to help merchants comply with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI), according to a survey set to be released on Thursday. The …