ECOM Financial Corp., which has developed a disposable, anonymous prepaid card that works on the MasterCard network, has taken a step toward commercialization by reaching an issuing agreement with First Bank of Delaware, Wilmington, Del. In an announcement released Monday, the Stuart, Fla.-based company, which has had the card in …

NACHA, which took the opportunity presented by its annual payments trade show this week in San Diego to promote the upcoming pilot of its new Internet payment application, appears to be on track toward its Aug. 30 target date for recruiting most participants for the project. But key issues like …

The chairman of the board of NACHA, the rules-setting organization for the automated clearing house network, looks for widespread adoption of a new point-of-sale payment application the association approved this week and says the network will try again this year to introduce a controversial fee aimed at controlling risk. Chairman …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc., one of the few publicly traded independent sales organizations, today reported its revenues jumped 39% in the first quarter, to $236.8 million, on a 34% increase in transaction volume, to $9.2 billion. Net income for the period came to $4.39 million, a 63% increase. The Princeton, …

The Utah Transit Authority in November will begin accepting contactless payment tokens in a pilot project that will represent the first use of contactless technology to process bus fares in the U.S. The Salt Lake City-based transit agency in September will begin equipping 41 buses that ferry passengers to local …

Processors of stored-value transactions are noting a new development that's driving growth in payroll cards, perhaps the hottest prepaid card market: Increasingly, employers are issuing them to workers with checking accounts and other established banking relationships, according to an article set to appear in the May issue of Digital Transactions …

Visa USA's announcement this week of a new program to foster card transactions in the growing category of small-value payments would seem at first blush to be the bank card network's answer to some observers' long-held contention that the card associations should create incentives for the emerging technology of contactless …

The chief executive of the company holding the largest market share of installed readers for contactless payments predicts the technology, assisted by near-field communication (NFC) capability, will move rapidly from the physical point of sale to e-commerce. Mohammad Khan, president and founder of ViVOtech Inc., which makes electronic wallets for …

NACHA's long-expected pilot project to test Internet payments to retailers and billers will get under way early next year and will run for 12 months, the Herndon, Va.-based organization said Monday. In a conference call it held to explain the new automated clearing house payment application and discuss the rationale …

More than a month after officially unveiling its much-anticipated entry into the signature-debit card market, details of Discover Financial Services Inc.'s debit card strategy remain sketchy. Discover's sales pitch to financial institutions to issue its debit cards is built around its ability to offer issuers an interchange rate that is …