While more than a quarter of American households still were either unbanked or underbanked last year, as was the case in 2011, the proportion of unbanked households declined to 7.7 percent or 9.6 million households, compared with 8.2 percent in 2011, according to the latest report from the FDIC.
Ubiquity Global Services, a New York-based financial services and payments service company, will be the sole provider of dispute and chargeback services to UniRush LLC.
1to1 Card, a Chicago-based prepaid card program manager, announced that Paul Boemer has joined the company as chief strategy officer.
Bitcoin payment processor BitPay and Bitcoin exchange Vaurum announced that Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will serve as adviser to both enterprises.
CardCash.com, a Brick, N.J.-based marketplace for secondary gift cards, has hired Tom Ochoa as senior vice president of business development.
MasterCard has appointed Safdar Khan to lead its growing Islamic payments business in Southeast Asia, and he will be promoted to the role of group country manager for Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
Meta Financial Group Inc. announced that Elizabeth G. “Betty” Hoople has joined the company’s board of directors.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has hired Marion King as director of payments. She will begin her role with the Edinburgh-based company in early 2015.
Skrill Group, provider of online payment technologies to merchants and consumers, has announced that David Sear will become CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2015.
TMG Financial Services, a Des Moines, Iowa-based payments solutions provider, has announced the promotion of one employee and the addition of two others to the team.
Those of us immersed in payments may have a unique perspective on Apple Pay, but what about other folks? I asked one self-proclaimed Apple “fan boy” to give the mobile wallet a test drive.
Giving consumers what they really need and want from mobile payments will require making payments as invisible as possible.
India is on the brink of a huge economic transformation and making money digital is a crucial part of the solution.
MCX sets the record straight on CurrentC, including exclusivity and data security, following Rite Aid-CVS/pharmacy showdown with Apple Pay.
More than 1 million credit cards were activated within the first three days of the Apply Pay mobile wallet’s Oct. 20 debut, Apple CEO Tim Cook told attendees at the WSJD Live Global Technology Conference this week.
Retail holiday spending in the U.S. is expected to jump 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion in 2014, marking the first increase of more than 4 percent since 2011.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week signed a law giving Visa and MasterCard a five-month reprieve from paying a huge security deposit for operating in Russia, according to The Moscow Times.
MasterCard was one of several investors to lead a round of Series B funding that brought in $185 million for Mozido LLC, a startup that focuses on cloud-based, white-label mobile payments services for banks and merchants.
Banks are pioneering advanced technologies in Turkey, giving the country a headstart over many of its European counterparts. In Istanbul, Garanti Bank explained how it pays for its customers to get mobile internet access – and how it is using social media to attract and keep customers.
Consumers who want to use Apple Pay at the POS may be a little confused as two large pharmacy chains reportedly accepted some initial payments with the mobile wallet that went live last week, but no longer are.
Blackhawk Network and Green Dot Corp. recently have completed their acquisitions of Parago Inc. and Santa Barbara Tax Products Group (TPG), respectively.
FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion will meet this week to discuss the results of the 2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.
Several Paybefore Award-winning companies also were recent recipients of accolades at the Emerging Payments Awards held in London last week.
As GPR cards go mainstream for certain consumer sectors, banks that bring GPR cards to the forefront of their branch marketing efforts are seeing positive results, according to Cecilia Frew, Visa’s head of U.S. prepaid products.
David Nelms, CEO at Discover Financial Services, kept his cards close to the vest about the payments network’s involvement with the recently launched Apple Pay—but Discover’s participation does seem likely, based on his comments during a Q&A with investors on this week’s earnings call.
Finding ways to use GPR prepaid card usage data as a tool to help thin- and no-file consumers build credit has been an enticing yet elusive goal for the industry for years.
InComm is helping retailers fight several prevalent forms of prepaid card fraud by explaining what to look for and how to fight it.
In light of the intense regulatory focus and pressure on prepaid cards, it’s time for program managers to step up and manage their own compliance to the point of being “exam-ready.”
Retailers and financial institutions struggle with costs of data breaches.
Apple Pay is a “catalytic” event likely to change the U.S. payments landscape, though it may take time to see its full effect, according to Matt Barr, MasterCard’s new U.S. head of emerging payments.
Wave Crest Group Ltd., a Gibraltar-based multicurrency digital payments provider, has launched the MyFare debit card in the U.S., which enables fleet owners to pay their drivers instantly on a personalized prepaid card.
The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission last week published its 2014-2017 Strategic Plan, which is designed to reinforce Gibraltar’s position as a destination of choice for businesses looking for European headquarters.
Weeks away from its Money20/20 event in Las Vegas, Money2020 LLC has announced Money20/20 Europe, a conference and exhibition focusing on the opportunities and challenges specific to payments in Europe.
In a bid to make contactless payments of any size possible without a PIN, MasterCard and Zwipe, a Norwegian developer of payment cards with biometric sensors, have developed what the companies are calling the first contactless payments card featuring an integrated fingerprint sensor.
Longtime NetSpend partner ACE Cash Express has signed a distribution agreement with Green Dot Corp., making the check cashing giant and Paybefore Award-winning prepaid pioneer an authorized retailer for the Green Dot Reload Network.
TD Bank has reached a settlement over a 2012 data breach that compromised customers’ personal information.
As Apple Pay goes live today, millions of merchants will be measuring consumer and marketplace reaction at the POS, as they contemplate their own mobile payments strategies, including accepting NFC-based payments.
President Obama hours ago signed an executive order making chip-and-PIN card technology the standard for the federal government.
RBS has confirmed that it has hired Marion King, formerly president of UK and Ireland at MasterCard, in the newly created role of director of payments in the New Year.
Banks in Italy and beyond must find new ways to connect with consumers, or risk going out of business. But how to achieve a successful transformation exercised the minds of senior bank representatives at the SIA Expo in Milan this week.
