When on June 29 the Federal Reserve Board issued its final rule implementing the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, issuers had some cause to heave a sigh of relief. As stringent as the Fed’s debit card interchange caps were for issuers above $10 billion in assets, …

  By John Stewart and Jim Daly   Having beaten the banks on debit card pricing, they’re now staking out positions on mobile payments and chip cards. This could be the start of the decade of the merchant in the business of consumer payments.       Who controls consumer …

  By Bill Kinnelly and Anthony James   Most of the talk about the Durbin Amendment centers on debit interchange controls, but the sweeping measure must be considered in full and in relation to other costs.       As we enter the Durbin Era of debit card processing, much …

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  Newspapers, television, and the Web are full of bleak assessments about the U.S. economy, but you wouldn’t know that from the latest financial and operating results reported by Discover Financial Services, the credit card issuer and student-loan provider that’s also the fourth-largest general-purpose credit card network. Discover card sales …

  n The San Francisco-based company, which is aiming its product at developers, in June released an iOS version for Apple Inc. devices. It says the software is now active on 80 applications, with another 750 having registered but not yet gone live. “Getting such a wide variety of apps …

  What Keeps ATM Execs up at Night?       Complying with new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements and fighting fraudsters who put skimmers on their machines rank high on the to-do lists of ATM managers.   The findings come in a new report from Aite Group LLC …

  Linda Punch   Increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes show that personal identification numbers are more vulnerable than once thought. Bring in the reinforcements.       For the past 40 years, personal identification numbers have built an enviable reputation as a nearly inviolable security feature. They’re much more secure than …

  By Peter Lucas   The ACH hasn’t had a substantial change to its settlement windows in years. With the Fed offering same-day clearing and NACHA starting a rule-making process, that’s changing. But is it changing fast enough?       Same-day clearing and settlement of transactions through the automated …

Leading payment card network Visa Inc. on Tuesday announced three initiatives to spur adoption of so-called EMV contact and contactless chip cards and near-field communication (NFC) mobile payments in the U.S. Observers hailed Visa’s action, but noted that a full move to EMV and NFC mobile payments in the U.S. …