Prepaid Cards

All those unredeemed gift cards in people’s drawers and on dresser tops are adding up. New research from Bankrate LLC estimates the total value of Americans’ unredeemed gift cards and leftover store credits at $21 billion. Bankrate says its survey, the firm’s first of its kind, found the average adult …

Fiserv Inc. said its First Data unit is piloting PIN-on-mobile technology in Poland, with plans to expand the program to the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. The technology, which allows merchants to accept PINs on off-the-shelf mobile devices, was developed in collaboration with Visa Inc., Samsung Electronics …

News of impending interchange-rate revisions from Visa Inc. may have roiled the payments industry, but for processing giants like Global Payments Inc., the impact will simply be business as usual. Top Global executives made that point crystal clear Wednesday. “We see these [rate changes] all the time. We have to accommodate …

PayPal Holdings Inc. said it and the Center on Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University, along with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, formed a research project to examine payment methods used to finance illegally-sourced firearms with the goal of combatting the illegal sale of guns.Processor Fiserv Inc. announced its “Scan to …

Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP has taken an approximately 9% stake in prepaid card and banking services provider Green Dot Corp., according to a regulatory filing. Green Dot issued a statement saying it “welcomes transparent, constructive feedback regarding the common goal of enhancing long-term shareholder value.” In the wake of a big …

Visa Inc. is among backers of an $80-million investment in Currency Cloud Ltd., whose software runs cross-border payments for financial apps, primarily in Europe. The funding round, co-led by Visa and SAP’s venture-funding unit Sapphire, included backing from Google. The funding follows Visa’s $5.3-billion deal to acquire Plaid, whose software enables fintechs …

British telecommunications giant Vodafone Group Plc has become the latest Libra participant to withdraw from the controversial digital-currency project initiated by Facebook Inc., Reuters reported. Other early participants that have withdrawn include Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, and eBay.With an eye on expanding its Bitcoin services, merchant processor Square Inc. said it is developing what it calls …

Diebold Nixdorf Inc. released the Beetle A1150, an all-in-one point-of-sale system. Variations of the Beetle POS system have been available since at least 2002 from Wincor Nixdorf, a company Diebold acquired in 2016.Payments processor Computer Services Inc. reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $72.1 million, up 6.6% year-over-year, and net income of $12 million, up 5.8%. …

Consumers spent 7% more on gift cards during the 2019 holiday shopping season than in the same period in 2018, doubling the 3.4% gain seen in 2018 over 2017, according to data from prepaid program manager Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc., which did not release absolute spending numbers.The U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau …

InComm, a provider of payments processing for the prepaid market, launched its Vanilla Visa prepaid and gift cards in Mexico.Levelset, a payments provider for the construction industry, announced a $30-million funding round led by Horizons Ventures.Butterfly Network Inc., provider of a handheld ultrasound application for mobile devices, said its technology …