Pre-holiday spending volume on Visa cards continued to build in the week through Sunday, with overall transactions increasing 18.8%, to 405.6 million ($22.7 billion in dollar volume), over the same week a year ago. Activity on the Internet and in fast-food chains, two closely watched emerging spending categories, increased 22.5% …

With identify fraud posing a serious challenge to online bankers and merchants, technology vendors are starting to respond with hardware- and software-based solutions offering so-called strong authentication, which adds a second factor of identity to the standard user-name/password pair. Now Corillian Corp. has launched a product it says is the …

PIN debit transactions are cheaper than debit card transactions secured by signature, incur lower fraud losses, and generate slightly higher average tickets, according to a survey of issuing banks. Taking into account processing costs as well as the cost of back-office fraud-management, chargebacks, settlement, customer service, and accounting functions, the …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has begun accepting cards issued on the Debitman Card Inc. network, a 5-year-old system that allows merchants to issue and accept PIN-secured debit cards and clear transactions through the automated clearing house. Wal-Mart began taking the Debitman card Nov. 1 at all 3,600 U.S. Wal-Mart and Sam's …

In a move that could lead First Data Corp. to sell its shrinking card-issuing operation, the Denver-based processor announced today it has hired investment banker Morgan Stanley to investigate options for the unit. The card-issuing business, one of three principal processing operations at First Data, has been rocked in recent …

DataTreasury Corp. has scored another victory in its ongoing litigation against major banks, networks, and vendors over alleged infringement of DataTreasury patents covering processes involved in check-image exchange, and now says it is preparing to fight cases it has filed against nine other outstanding defendants. With the decision by France's …

NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based organization that sets rules for the automated clearing house network, has released rules to allow banks and check-accepting businesses to distinguish checks written by companies from those written by consumers. The former are not supposed to be submitted to the network for settlement under NACHA rules, …

Wachovia Corp. has announced it is re-entering the credit card business and will end a relationship with MBNA Corp. under which MBNA has issued cards for Wachovia since 2002. The news comes on the same day that MBNA shareholders voted overwhelmingly to approve a $35 billion acquisition of the monoline …

Reflecting a recent trend in card-based payments, signature-debit card dollar volume on MasterCard International's U.S. network grew at double-digit rates in the first nine months of the year, far outstripping growth in credit card transactions. MasterCard reported today that its signature, or offline, debit cards in the U.S. accounted for …

Noted in recent years for its strategy of buying assets in high-growth processing niches, TransFirst LLC is back in the hunt, this time looking for a bill-payment processor that can help it create a service for small financial institutions that would allow customers to pay bills on the banks' Web …