The Gimlet Eye The Forgotten Ones No doubt everyone is still digesting the debit card interchange proposals that the Federal Reserve Board released on Dec. 16. These rules, which represent the first-ever government regulation of payment card interchange, are the result of a years-long tug-of-war between merchants on one end …

Trends & Tactics PayPal Eyes Payments from Couch Potatoes Might PayPal Inc.’s next advertising theme be, “As Seen on TV”?Having recently struck deals that will bring it to the physical point of sale, the payments unit of eBay Inc. is working with a Texas television-technology specialist to handle anticipated growing …

Credit cards will continue to dominate online payments for at least the next five years, but they will lose share to debit cards, alternative payments, and prepaid and gift cards, according to new projections from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin predicts in its “2010 Online Retail Payments Update and Forecast” …

A major Federal Reserve payments study released last week grabbed headlines for documenting a dramatic three-year increase in electronic transactions, but a closer examination this week by officials who worked on the report highlights a number of subsidiary trends in such key areas as remote deposit capture, person-to-person payments, and …

Companies are starting to bet that consumer interest in electronically delivered offers and rewards is spilling into the mobile channel. In the most recent example of this trend, Cardlytics, an Atlanta-based firm whose technology lets consumers redeem rewards by using a bank-issued payment card, this week announced a tie-in with …

In a move the payments industry had expected since early August, the nation’s largest wireless carriers on Tuesday announced they had formed a joint venture to run a point-of-sale mobile-payments network. The new company, known as Isis, will be headed by Michael Abbott, formerly an executive with GE Capital’s proprietary …

With regulatory problems overshadowing its main issuing partner, prepaid card program manager NetSpend Holdings Inc. says it is optimistic that it will be able to form partnerships with other issuing banks. n NetSpend is looking at proposals from a number of regional and national banks to provide sponsorship services, chief …

Payments companies ranging from leading merchant processors to prepaid card and ATM managers reported transaction growth in the third quarter, but some also faced pricing pressures and other drags on the bottom line. –No. 1 payment processor First Data Corp. said transactions in its merchant-processing unit called Retail and Alliance …

The storm clouds over prepaid card program manager NetSpend Holdings Inc.’s IPO caused by regulatory problems at MetaBank, the prepaid card program manager’s main issuing partner, cleared Monday, enabling NetSpend to go through with the stock offering at the mid-point of its projected price range. And on Tuesday afternoon, NetSpend’s …

Visa Inc. raised its profile in the growing transit payments market on Tuesday with announcements that it was backing mobile payments for New York City-area commuters and was the exclusive card network for new prepaid fare cards in Los Angeles. Visa also said its payWave contactless card became usable Aug. …