With issuers and program managers having come under fire in recent months for allegedly high and numerous consumer fees for prepaid products, American Express Co. on Tuesday launched a reloadable prepaid card that levies no activation or maintenance fees. It also charges no reload fee when value is loaded …
June, 2011
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14 June
DoJ Should Have Pushed Harder on Steering Settlements, Some Merchants Say
The U.S. Department of Justice filed court documents Tuesday that move toward completion its challenge of Visa and MasterCard network rules limiting merchants’ ability to steer customer payments toward their preferred forms. Tuesday’s action is largely procedural as Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. announced settlements when the DoJ and seven …
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9 June
Unfazed by Latecomers Like Square And Intuit, Inner Fence Soldiers on
n n n n Inner Fence refers applicants to its ISO partner, Dublin, Ohio-based Merchant Focus Inc., for merchant accounts. The service uses the Authorize.net gateway for access to the payment networks. Merchants pay a $25 monthly fee, plus 24 cents and 1.74% to 3.79% of the sale, depending …
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9 June
Visa Announces Deal with Monitise for Mobile Service Tied to Debit, Prepaid
Visa Inc. on Thursday cemented into place two more pieces of a developing strategy for what is rapidly turning into a hotly competitive market for mobile payments. The world’s largest card network announced it had struck an agreement with Monitise PLC, a U.K.-based provider of mobile services for financial …
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8 June
An Amendment To Delay the Durbin Amendment Comes Up Short
Defenders of the debit card interchange status quo saw their last, best hope to delay draconian Federal Reserve regulations from taking effect go down to defeat Wednesday afternoon. An amendment in the U.S. Senate that would have delayed the Fed’s rules died on a 54-45 vote, six shy of the …
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8 June
Bling Nation’s Pause to Retool Likely to Leave It Behind Rivals
Slow acceptance among merchants and consumers appears to be the underlying cause for Bling Nation’s decision to suspend operation of its PayConnect and FanConnect mobile services. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Bling said earlier this week that it is pausing operations to retool its services in response to feedback from merchants …
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7 June
Wells, BofA Walk Away from Pariter, Their Joint ACH Processing Platform
Three years after introducing a joint venture aimed at processing automated clearing house transactions between the two banks, Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. have abandoned the operation, which they called Pariter. “It will shut down over the next few weeks,” a Wells spokesperson tells Digital …
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2 June
Forget PayPal And Google. Acquirers Are Most Worried About Visa, MasterCard
n n n The source of such fears is a fast-changing landscape in which all the payment card networks are looking for new revenues and markets. “Some of my clients are freaking out, without naming names,” says Adil Moussa, an analyst at Boston-based Aite. Card networks are already direct …