Target Corp., which has opened more than 9 million accounts for its cobranded Visa smart card since the program's launch in November 2001, has announced it is shutting down the chip function on the card owing to lack of use. Target said in a statement today the phase-out will begin …

Information Architects Corp., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based provider of Web-based employee-screening technology, has announced it is entering the market for electronic point-of-sale transactions secured by cardholders' fingerprints. The company says it has acquired a U.S. patent (6,270,011 B1) that covers a fingerprint-scanning methodology for credit cards via scanners deployed at …

Visa USA's increase in credit card interchange rates, announced today, are intended to help the giant bank card network keep its members' business in the face of recent efforts by American Express Co. to court banks as issuers of its cards, Visa says. As expected by many observers, Visa today …

A new technology that fights counterfeit card fraud by allowing a sort of “fingerprint” comparison routine based on magnetic stripes is getting its first commercial application with shipments having started within the past few weeks of card-personalization machines enabled with the technology. Kiran Gandhi, vice president for Carson, Calif.-based MagTek …

MasterCard International plans by the end of the year to have in place a program to certify instant card issuance activity in the United States. The bank card company is testing an instant-issuance certification plan in Brazil now, and is concerned enough about perceived risk in instant issuance that it …

Pay By Touch, the San Francisco-based supplier of a point-of-sale payment technology that replaces cards and other media with fingerprint scans, says it is close to several major deals which, if consummated, will give the fledgling company and its system considerable momentum. Among the deals in the pipeline, says Pay …

First Data Corp. officals vowed today they expect to fight hard to add to the debit business of Concord EFS Inc., the debit processor First Data is buying for $6.9 billion. In a meeting with securities analysts to present 2003 full-year and fourth-quarter results, First Data chairman and chief executive …

Just weeks after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. informed MasterCard International Inc. that the chain would stop accepting MasterCard debit cards effective next month, the bank card company has released a consumer survey showing that merchants who reject debit cards risk losing sales. Sponsored by MasterCard and conducted by Harris Interactive, best …

Pay By Touch, a San Francisco-based company offering a biometrics-based technology that allows consumers to pay at the point of sale without presenting a card, keyfob, token, or any other payment medium, announced today that it has formed an alliance with IBM Corp. that should give the fledgling biometrics company …

The market for ultra-low-ticket song downloads from online music stores continues to heat up. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has launched a service on its Web-based operation, Walmart.com USA LLC, that offers single songs for 88 cents, or 11 cents cheaper than what has become the 99-cent standard price for songs available …