News

January, 2013

• 24 January

  Will Apple Press Forward Or Take a Pass on Passbook Payments?

  n Passbook? The topic of Apple Inc.’s loyalty application didn’t come up Wednesday afternoon when the leading Silicon Valley tech company’s top brass discussed their latest quarterly results, which stock analysts found disappointing. But some smart-phone industry observers see evidence that Apple is laying the groundwork for a full-fledged mobile-payments …
• 23 January

  New Assessment of Durbin’s Effects Warns Fixed Network Fees Could Crimp Competition

  A sweeping review by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City of the Durbin Amendment’s effects warns that competition could be harmed if more payment card networks adopt fixed-pricing plans as they compete for merchant business in the newly regulated debit card environment. The new report is the first of …
• 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 …