eBay Inc.’s board of directors says spinning off PayPal in an IPO would not be in the company’s and investors’ best interest, resisting a call from activist investor Carl Icahn—a 2 percent owner of eBay—to sell all or part of PayPal.
American Express is creating a joint venture for its Global Business Travel division (GBT), in which the card network will share ownership of the JV with an investor group led by New York investment firm Certares.
The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) shared proof last week that its Compass Principles for improving the quality of prepaid cards work.
Heading to college is all about the quest for knowledge. Part of that process is learning to use fact-based, impartial research to reach educated conclusions. Unfortunately, the March 10 Department of Education’s Inspector General’s report, “Third-Party Servicer Use of Debit Cards to Deliver Title IV Funds,” doesn’t make the grade.
EBA Clearing has reported that market participants are gradually adapting to SEPA, with peak day volumes on its Step2 clearing platform above 100 million SEPA credit transfers and SEPA direct debits.
The Federal Reserve Board has earned a major victory in its long-running legal battle with a group of merchants over its rules implementing the Durbin Amendment, including caps on interchange fees for debit card transactions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is developing a new fee disclosure format for prepaid cards, ahead of new rules on the topic the agency expects to propose this year.
European Parliament has voted to adopt proposed cybersecurity rules requiring organizations to meet new security standards and share information in case of security breaches.
As Host Card Emulation (HCE) gains momentum and questions continue about whether mass acceptance of NFC technology will ever come, the NFC Forum has issued a position statement on HCE, which emulates an NFC card in the cloud, eliminating the need for a secure element and trusted service manager for NFC applications, such as payments.
Seeking a more efficient and cost-effective method of paying underbanked employees, clothing retailer Pacific Sunwear of California turned to ADP’s ALINE Pay electronic payroll platform, which has since become a cornerstone of the company’s payroll operations.
During the All Payments Expo (APEX) in Las Vegas March 3-5 2014, Paybefore announced its Best-in-Category and Industry Achievement winners for the 2014 Paybefore Awards. Check out the photos.
As momentum builds for HCE, MNOs may be left wondering why they’re getting cut out of the mobile payments value chain. While GSMA has been pushing NFC adoption with great force, the problem is that this force encouraged MNOs to go solo.
Design of Square Cash’s caliber is not cheap. Finding a way to move money faster than conventional methods is not cheap. Is Jack Dorsey’s media darling gathering press and praise at the expense of sound strategy? Or, is Square Cash more than the very few screens that meet the eye?
Google Wallet is making another course-correction to keep up with fast-moving mobile payments technology.
Western Union is continuing its global expansion in mobile payments, announcing a new mobile money transfer service for Nigeria.
Mobile payments with a flick of the wrist are here.
Legislators and companies, such as MasterCard, are introducing standards for prepaid card disclosures that help us all.
Holders of contactless Visa cards in the U.K. made 94.3 million contactless purchases in 2013, a surge from the 25 million made in 2012, according to data from Visa Europe.
Payments technology company TAS Group, based in Italy with U.S. headquarters in Las Vegas, recently launched its Card 3.0 Card Management Platform in the U.S. to offer program managers greater customization capabilities, down to the cardholder level, and quicker time to market for new programs.
China’s central bank last week released draft rules that would limit the use of third-party payment systems, including the payment operations of Alibaba Holding Group and Tencent Holdings Inc.
Fiserv Inc. has opted to make MasterCard’s U.S. common debit application identifier (AID) available for its Accel debit network, as another piece falls into place in the U.S. debit networks’ EMV transaction-routing puzzle.
The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) gives the prepaid industry an A-.
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has begun accepting applications from firms looking to set up digital currency exchanges and will issue proposed regulations on digital currency in the coming months, the agency said.
Developments in retail financial services are bringing together large financial institutions and more entrepreneurial, but much smaller, startup companies. While both groups benefit from partnerships—as those in prepaid have long known—there are challenges.
We asked M&A experts to tell us what to expect in the coming months, specifically around prepaid, mobile and emerging payments. They all agreed on one thing: Change will continue to be the norm.
The European Parliament’s ECON Committee vote on the “Payments Package” has resulted in inconsistent legislative text that differs significantly from the EC draft proposal. With an aggressive timeline for passage, including an April plenary vote, the payments industry needs to make its voice heard on the potentially harmful impacts of the proposed changes.
Minneapolis-based remote deposit capture (RDC) specialist Cachet Financial Solutions has made a major move into the mobile wallet arena, acquiring the moneto mobile payment platform from DeviceFidelity Inc.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch last week began testing a new product in six states that could compete with GPR cards and low-cost bank accounts, such as Moven, Simple and Green Dot Corp.’s GoBank, the latter two of which are Paybefore Awards winners.
McDonald’s Sweden has integrated the SEQR payment service of Stockholm-based software development company Seamless into its own mobile app, enabling customers of the QSR to pay with SEQR.
We may not be the shiny new thing like mobile, but prepaid has a role to play in the new era of payments because it’s accessible to every consumer. For prepaid businesses to stay relevant and take their place in this evolving market, they must hold onto the innovative spirit and keen focus on solving problems that sparked the industry more than 15 years ago.
Prepaid products now have a proven track record in many major European countries, where the industry has begun the process of transitioning from its adolescent phase into one of mature, stable growth.
Many Chicago drivers soon won’t have to dig under the seat for spare change to feed the meter. The city has announced a new initiative to launch a mobile payment system for parking, set for a pilot run in the downtown area this spring, with a rollout throughout Chicago to follow.
Vodafone’s NFC-based mobile wallet and prepaid Vodafone SmartPass Visa account went live this month in Germany, enabling Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica Deutschland mobile network subscribers to conduct contactless and P2P transactions with NFC-ready phones via participating banks.
EMVCo today has released its tokenization specification, and is inviting all payments industry participants to provide feedback.
Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. next month will complete its spinoff from parent Safeway Inc., but the two companies will remain close partners because of a deal Blackhawk inked to extend its role as exclusive prepaid and gift card provider to Safeway through 2019.
MasterCard plans to roll out its MasterPass mobile wallet platform to the United Arab Emirates later this year.
MasterCard and Visa announced the formation of a new cross-industry group focused on enhancing payment system security to keep pace with the expectations of consumers, retailers and financial institutions.
Sally Beauty, the specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies, is the latest retailer allegedly falling prey to hackers—or, at least, becoming the victim of rumors that credit and debit card information and other customer data has been compromised.
With Bitcoin and other digital currencies continuing to stir controversy, one of the main arguments of critics calling for tightly regulating such forms of tender is that the currencies’ anonymous nature makes them conducive to use in illicit activities and transactions. But as a U.S. Congressman points out in a letter to federal regulators, paper money also can be used anonymously for illicit ends—and thus, the tongue-in-cheek missive claims, regulators should turn their attention to banning cold, hard cash too.
The mobile payments system planned by the UK Payments Council will be branded Paym. The Council says that it will announce the go-live date next month and final testing is on track.
