Discover has signed deals with more than 50 merchant acquirers in the run-up toward implementing in-store acceptance of PayPal via Discover’s payment network. The agreements—which cover acquirers, including Heartland Payment Systems, TSYS and Vantiv—will enable PayPal acceptance at more than 2 million merchants by the end of this year, according to Discover. PayPal announced its […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week made some adjustments and extended by several months the effective date of final rules on international money transfers, ending a period of limbo for remittance-transfer providers. Oct. 28, 2013, is the new effective date for the CFPB’s revised final remittance rule affecting foreign remittances, amending Regulation E of […]
Consumers could have one more reason to redeem cash-based promotional offers if parago, a Lewisville, Texas-based incentive provider, succeeds with its new “action-triggered” prepaid card. Designed to increase response to direct mail and other promotional offers, the new offering enables marketers to send consumers a zero-balance prepaid card that marketers can instantly load with value […]
Financial institutions have owned the commercial payment space for centuries, but are now seeing a threat to their incumbency from new technologies that have opened up the industry to other business sectors. Mobile transactions in particular are shaking-up banking.
UMB Financial Corp., a Kansas City, Mo.-based financial services holding company, has announced that Hugh Meadows has joined UMB as vice president, debit/prepaid card product manager for health care services. He is responsible for executing strategy and driving growth to UMB prepaid and debit card portfolios through new sales and expanding existing business. He also […]
For the third consecutive year, Ukash, a London-based prepaid voucher provider, has been honored by the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise for its contribution to international trade. The International Trade award recognizes U.K. businesses that have delivered substantial growth in overseas earnings and improved levels of commercial success globally. The award reinforces Ukash’s sustained commitment to […]
B Lab’s 2013 Best for the World List, which acknowledges companies creating the most positive overall social and environmental impact, has recognized St. Paul, Minn.-based Sunrise Banks. The bank invests in projects within inner-city neighborhoods, works closely with state and federal assistance programs and supports community development, among other philanthropies. B Lab is a nonprofit […]
ROAM, a Boston-based mobile commerce platform provider and Ingenico company, has appointed Scott Goldthwaite senior vice president of operations. His duties include ensuring that the firm’s operations and business processes are aligned with the rapidly evolving needs of its customers as they deploy mobile point-of-sale solutions. Goldthwaite previously served as a senior member of the […]
The prepaid and emerging payments industry recently lost a highly respected 30-year veteran. Timothy Birk, CEO at Performance Benefits Inc., died in a car accident on April 14, 2013. Birk, 56, is survived by his wife, Sheri, her children, Brandt and Aidan, and his children, Luke, Olivia and Thomas with his first wife, LaDon. Birk […]
Mercury Payment Systems, a Durango, Colo.-based prepaid card processor, has announced that Nick Nayfack, director of product, accepted a seat on the Electronic Transactions Association’s (ETA) mobile payments committee. ETA is an international trade association for the payment processing industry. Nayfack will develop best practices in mobile commerce with industry peers to enable merchants and […]
Javelin Strategy & Research has hired Nick Holland as senior analyst of payments. He has spent the last decade focusing on the intersection of payments, mobile, retail and security, according to the company. His prior work includes Mercator Advisory Group, Pyramid Research, Aite Group and, most recently, Yankee Group’s Mobile Money Strategies practice. Holland has […]
May 2013 Javelin Strategy & Research has hired Nick Holland as senior analyst of payments. He has spent the last decade focusing on the intersection of payments, mobile, retail and security, according to the company. His prior work includes Mercator Advisory Group, Pyramid Research, Aite Group and, most recently, Yankee Group’s Mobile Money Strategies practice. […]
GoPago Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of emerging mobile payments technology, has hired Steve Elefant as chief strategy officer, and he will be in charge of strategy and ISO partnerships. Elefant has more than 25 years of experience in overall company strategy, products, end-to-end encryption, mobile, business development, and mergers and acquisitions. Most recently, he […]
Galitt, a French payments and electronic transactions consultancy, has appointed Mike Delagrange senior vice president and general manager of Galitt’s U.S. operations. He will be responsible for positioning Galitt’s success in selling EMV, NFC and TSM consulting services throughout Europe to major companies in the U.S. Delagrange has more than 20 years of conventional and […]
Joseph Hurley has been with Discover since 1985 when the then-small company with the big idea—cash-back rewards—got started. He has held positions in marketing, product management, government relations, and network products and services. From 2008-2010, Hurley was deputy president of Diners Club International, and from 2003-2008 he served as head of global client relations and vice president […]
Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based provider of financial services technology, has announced that its debit payments network, formerly known as ACCEL/Exchange, has a new name: Accel. The name reflects the network’s ability to accelerate funds transfers across retail, biller and social P2P payments, and positions the network within the Fiserv portfolio of payments capabilities to […]
American Express Co. has promoted Edward P. Gilligan to president. Gilligan has served as vice chairman of American Express since 2007, when he was named head of a B2B group responsible for the company’s global relationships with merchants, corporations and bank partners. He joined the company in 1980, and he was named business unit president […]
Allied Payment Network, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based provider of online bill payment services to the financial industry, has announced that Steve Paradine, a financial industry sales veteran with more than 25 years of experience, has joined the company as its senior vice president of sales. His previous experience includes Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), where […]
Best use of virtual or digital delivery associated with a prepaid program or payments, such as gaming, virtual currency and P2P.
In this installment of our Paybefore Awards coverage, get to know each of the winning programs in the following categories: Best Business-to-Business Prepaid Card Program Outstanding Mobile Wallet or Mobile Application Best Virtual or Digital Program Most Effective Marketing Campaign
A difficult future for the banking industry, but a potentially great one for London as a financial centre, was predicted by Sir John Gieve, chairman of VocaLink and former deputy governor of the Bank of England, speaking at the opening of Swift’s Business Forum in London today. But the industry must be careful and diplomatic if it wants to have any real say in how the future is shaped.
UnionPay’s recent expansion push has taken a major step forward now that the Shanghai-based payment card network has announced a new prepaid card to be issued by The Bancorp in the U.S. The UnionPay Travel Prepaid Card, announced yesterday in New York City, marks the first UnionPay card of any type available in the U.S. […]
London-based prepaid voucher specialist Ukash is extending the reach of its services further with a new deal announced this week with MoneyGram. The alliance will enable Ukash customers to send funds from the Ukash Website to recipients at any MoneyGram outlet worldwide. The service will launch in the U.K. later this year, with plans to […]
Several payment startups have reported funding rounds in recent days, among them are, Tango Card, ZooZ and GoCardless. Tango Card, a Seattle-based provider of a multipurpose gift card that can be used to buy closed-loop gift cards from national retailers, donate to charity or cash out remaining balances, this week announced a $4.1 million series […]
Mobile commerce in the Netherlands reached EUR560 million (US$748 million) in 2012, or 6 percent of all online spending volume during the year, according to a report from industry group Thuiswinkel. The number of Dutch consumers who made a purchase via mobile device during the second half of 2012 was 1.7 million, up a whopping […]
Giving consumers preferential customer service treatment and instant discounts for paying with their smartphones could help boost mobile payment usage, a new Accenture survey suggests. In a broad survey of 4,000 U.S. and Canadian consumers conducted online last year, half of respondents already using their smartphones for payments said they would be more likely to […]
Dermot Turing, partner at Clifford Chance, told the IPS conference that regulators are hampering innovation by making it hard for the industry to collaborate though application of competition law. He advocates that banks – particularly from the transaction and payments world – should be educating the regulators in order to get better regulations.
The rising prevalence of mobile POS systems could result in up to $1.1 trillion in additional card payments per year and increase payment card acceptance by as many as 20 million merchants, according to a new report by Javelin Strategy & Research. Mobile POS systems like Square, PayPal Here, SpotPay and iZettle, which have become popular […]
Brick-and-mortar retailers are cheering the U.S. Senate’s support of proposed legislation that would prevent some online and catalog merchants from selling goods without collecting sales tax, which traditional retailers say would level the playing field as in-store, online and mobile sales channels converge. The U.S. Senate on May 6 will vote on the Marketplace Fairness […]
Cross-border shopping could become more convenient with a pair of new services from TSYS that display transactions in multiple currencies, along with the daily exchange rate, so consumers can decide which currency they prefer to pay with before making in-store or online purchases. Through a partnership with Planet Payment Inc., an international multicurrency payment processor, […]
In a move meant to embody the evolution of the company, automated retail provider Coinstar Inc. has announced plans to change its name to Outerwall Inc. The name change, which will be subject to shareholder vote in late June, reflects Coinstar’s growth “from a single coin-counting kiosk business into multiple automated retail businesses,” the Bellevue, […]
By Hunny Huria, Visa At times I’m amazed how social media has changed our lives and continues to have potential to impact it more. There are innumerable people who start the day by checking their Facebook accounts. As of December 2012, Facebook had more than half a billion daily active users, and 9 million apps […]
Mobile wallets are still in the formative stage of their development but a few lessons already are emerging, according to certain payment industry players sharing their experiences this week at CARTES America in Las Vegas. Inventing new ways to pay using a smartphone is not enough to justify the effort to develop mobile wallets because […]
The Belgian automated interbank retail payment system has been completely migrated to a new Clearing and Settlement Mechanism developed and operated by French payment processing specialist STET
KBC Bank has partnered with payment specialist Sentenial to offer the latter’s Origix Corporate payment management solution to the bank’s business clients.
Maurice Cleaves, Barclays, talks to Banking Technology editor David Bannister about the themes that emerged at the International Payments Summit 2013 in London.
Payday and deposit advance loans were in the news today, with a new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and a Notice of Proposed Guidance from the FDIC each indicating that regulators soon could tighten rules governing short-term credit products. Payday and deposit advance loans can lead to a repeating cycle of indebtedness […]
The U.S. rollout this spring of MasterCard’s MasterPass may be quieter than some other product launches because it doesn’t directly target consumers, Ed Olebe, group head, wallet services, emerging payments, MasterCard, said this week at CARTES America in Las Vegas. MasterPass, unveiled earlier this year as the successor to last year’s PayPass Wallet Services and […]
Online merchants using Vindicia’s CashBox SaaS platform are now able to accept paysafecard for digital goods and services, according to paysafecard, a European-based prepaid electronic payment solution provider, with offices in in Vienna, London and New York. “Vindicia is the ideal partner . . . to help us strengthen our footprint in the U.S.,” said […]
The companies behind the Isis mobile wallet have teamed up with cashless acceptance technology provider USA Technologies (USAT) to launch a mobile payment and loyalty program for vending machines across the U.S. The partnership is an extension of USAT’s involvement in Isis’s test run in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas, where Isis users can […]
