The announcement earlier this week by Transport for London that Londoners have paid for more than 700,000 bus fares using their contactless bank cards since the option for contactless payment was introduced three months ago is proof that contactless payment is finally here, says Bernhard Lachenmeier, head of products and marketing at SIX Payment Services. So why does it feel like this isn’t the case?
French bank Oddo & Cie has chosen SmartStream Technologies to help improve its risk management and increase levels of automation in its reconciliations processing.
Fiserv Inc. is the latest to offer mobile deposit capture for prepaid cards, with a new program targeting prepaid card processors that includes a check-guarantee service so cardholders may receive funds immediately instead of waiting several days for checks to clear. Fiserv’s Prepaid Source Capture, based on the remote deposit capture it has offered banks […]
Payments processor Global Payments Inc. will support Visa Europe when it launches its V.me digital wallet in the U.K. this spring. The country’s third-largest card payments processor, Global Payments joins WorldPay as processing partners for the U.K. version of the wallet, which launched a pilot with bank partner RBS late last year and is expected […]
As competition among mobile merchant acceptance services in India grows, merchants seem to be responding to the new technology. Bangalore-based iKaaz says that within three months of launching its NFC-based card reader for merchants, the company is processing 800,000 transactions monthly. The iKaaz NFC Reader, available for US$20, plugs into any mobile phone and enables […]
Video game giant Nintendo will launch a series of prepaid cards in Japan that feature characters from the popular Super Mario franchise. The cards will be available in monetary denominations of 1,000 yen (US$10.40), 2,000 yen (US$20.81) and 3,000 yen (US$31.21), and will be available starting in late April from convenience stores and other retailers […]
As new rules for OTC derivatives take hold in Europe and in the US, banks and asset managers face a complex cocktail of mandatory clearing, reporting and increased collateral requirements.
Social media can add value for banks, but they need to be careful that the risk of damaging their brand does not outweigh the potential benefits, according to Jaroslaw Knapik, senior analyst, financial services technology at Ovum.
A new generation of ATMs that offer customers more personalised services will provide a core tool for increasing levels of banking competition, according to a new report by business consultancy Navigant.
Standard Chartered has appointed Peter Burnet as its regional head of corporate finance for northeast Asia. In his new role, Burnett will cover project and export finance, mergers and acquisitions advisory, structured trade finance, financing solutions and equity capital markets.
Personal financial management tools have spluttered in and out of fashion, but a combination of mobile, tablet and internet banking uptake may mean their time has come, Recent years have seen the emergence of a plethora of PFM tools, each of which purports to be the best way to keep track of your finances.
With government officials considering a FinCEN anti-money laundering rule that would require consumers to report when they transport prepaid cards, along with cash and/or monetary instruments, with a value of more than $10,000 into or out of the country, representatives from three payment card networks went to the White House to request the rule be […]
Online merchants using Minneapolis-based Digital River Inc.’s e-commerce platform may now add paysafecard, a European-based prepaid electronic payment option, to their consumer checkout menus, the companies said. Paybefore Award-winning paysafecard, founded in 2000 in Austria, provides prepaid payment services for more than 450,000 European and U.S. merchants in 33 countries. Adding paysafecard “makes online purchasing […]
London-based prepaid voucher provider Ukash is rolling out a new service that will enable customers to turn their vouchers back into cash. Set to debut later this month, the Cash Withdrawals service lets users turn their game winnings or Ukash transaction change into cash at more than 24,000 PayPoint-enabled retailers throughout the U.K. Previously, Ukash […]
Mobile payments are evolving at different rates around the globe, with Asia leading other regions including Latin America, Europe and North America in growth. However, progress is uneven and it remains unclear which payment technology will prevail worldwide, according to a new report from Amsterdam-based payments consulting firm Innopay. In Japan, for example, contactless payments […]
Many debit and prepaid card issuers are scrambling to make provisions as of today with debit card routing rules under the Durbin Amendment and the General Use Prepaid Exemption. Issuers were caught off guard as a result of FAQs, representing a Federal Reserve Board staff clarification of the requirements, released quietly by the Fed in […]
Consumers and businesses inside and outside of China may have enhanced online payment options now that Chinese online commerce giant Alibaba Group and MasterCard have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work together on e-commerce. In addition to enhancing e-commerce, the companies said key goals of the MOU include working to help combat intellectual […]
Prepaid cards represent “the next chapter” of electronic government payments, according to a new report from the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) and the Hudson Institute, which outlines ways to make benefit disbursement cards even more beneficial to recipients. One approach to improving benefit cards is by increasing the choice of card products available […]
A new money transfer service is providing Nigerians with a way to manage and access their Western Union remittances via their mobile phones. VCASH subscribers can use the service, which was launched last week by Western Union Co. and Nigerian mobile payment operator Virtual Terminal Network, to transfer individual Western Union remittances up to US$300 […]
Hungary this fall will roll out a uniform system for paying transportation costs via mobile phone. The National Mobile Payments System will be run by Nemzeti Mobilfizetési, a state-run company, while various mobile payment providers will act as resellers, according to a report in the Budapest Business Times. The platform initially will enable mobile payments […]
Enterprise mobility is a constantly evolving undertaking. As with any technology, just when you think it’s safe to use a term, the wording changes or a new device or solution comes out. This report examines the technology behind mobile application development for the enterprise and takes a look at the platform landscape. Mobile application development […]
Enterprise data management vendor GoldenSource has added support for the ISO 17442 Legal Entity Identifier standard to its systems
Barclays has appointed Yera Hagopian as global head of liquidity product within its cash management team. Hagopian joins Barclays from JP Morgan where she was EMEA head of liquidity.
Asset finance has had a lower profile than other types of loan. But the overall squeeze on lending and higher business loan rejection rates have led to an increased demand for leasing arrangements by SMEs. As a result, asset finance is now the third most common source of finance for businesses.
Reports have swirled for the past week or more that the European banks that own Visa Europe might soon exercise an option to sell the organization to U.S.-based Visa Inc. and set up a new network of their own. Although Visa Europe members may be driving the sale, taking control of the European network could […]
Redwood City, Calif.-based payment processor i2c Inc. has added enhanced features to its payments platform that enable users to budget spending by using multiple purses within one account. i2c’s platform, known as MCP, enables companies to launch and manage card-based, virtual and mobile payment products to their customers. With the new features, i2c clients can […]
Canada’s national ATM and debit network Interac this week announced the completion of the nation’s first NFC mobile debit transaction in a demonstration at a Toronto McDonald’s restaurant. The transaction showcasing the contactless EMV Interact Flash technology was conducted with an NFC-ready BlackBerry smartphone linked to a RBC Royal Bank customer’s bank account through mobile […]
India’s government has launched an electronic money order service, opening a channel for citizens living abroad to purchase an electronic Indian postal order (eIPO) over the Internet. India established eIPOs for Indian citizens outside the country to pay for Right to Information requests, which enables citizens to request data and other information from any public […]
Japan’s Mizuho International has adopted the common reporting, financial reporting and liquidity coverage ratio modules of Wolters Kluwer’s Basel III toolkit, which is designed to help banks cope as regulators tighten the screws on the banking sector’s capital requirements.
US derivatives giant CME Group and OTC trade processing service MarkitServ have connected to support clearing for OTC FX transactions, ahead of new regulations in the US and Europe on the central clearing of OTC contracts.
Post-trade services provider Omgeo has appointed Edward Hazel of Goldman Sachs, Richard Taggart of State Street and Susan Cosgrove of the DTCC to its board of managers. The Omgeo board members are responsible for representing the interests of all Omgeo’s clients as decisions about strategy, governance and operations are made. Hazel is the global co-head […]
Best use of a consumer-funded reloadable network branded prepaid card for general use, such as ATM access and purchasing. Includes travel, remittance and youth-focused (including campus and student) programs; excludes payroll programs. For Paybefore’s purposes, card may mean a physical card or alternate form factor, including a virtual card. Best in Category: PayPal Prepaid MasterCard […]
The JP Morgan Task Force Report into its Chief Investment Office’s $6 billion-plus loss found the bank’s Value at Risk was being calculated with an Excel spreadsheet that “required time-consuming manual inputs to entries and formulas, which increased the potential for errors”.
In future, the possibility of a bank failure will be accepted as a normal market process, and barriers to entry for new start-ups, including a removal of capital requirement obstacles, will be removed, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England have confirmed.
By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC In the initial installment of this article, we addressed how trends in EMV will impact the prepaid sector. But developments in near field communication (NFC) merit an equally close watch, as they, too, should have bearing on the prepaid market and how it plays out moving forward. Let’s start […]
American Express and Walmart today announced that accounts held under the companies’ Bluebird program now will be eligible for FDIC insurance and, as such, will be able to receive direct deposit of government disbursements, including Social Security payments, military pay and tax refunds. The companies also have added a pre-authorized check-writing function, as well as […]
Allpoint Network, the Bethesda, Md.-based ATM network operator, has expanded its surcharge-free network by 5,000 new cash machines located across the upper Midwest and northern Plains states. Allpoint’s surcharge-free ATM network, already the world’s largest, according to the company, now totals more than 55,000 machines across North America, the U.K. and Australia. An affiliate of […]
Spain’s Banco Sabadell, operating under various local bank brands from its headquarters in the city of Sabadell, has launched an NFC payments pilot with mobile network operator Telefónica and BlackBerry. Participating customers will receive an NFC-enabled BlackBerry Curve smartphone with their Visa payment card details stored in the handset, the bank said. Customers may download […]
The decision by Senate Banking Committee chairman Tim Johnson, (D-S.D.), to retire next year opens a race for another Senate seat and simultaneously puts leadership of the influential banking committee into play. Sen. Johnson, 66, today announced that he will not run again when his current term ends in 2014, leaving a vacant seat that […]
They were never going to be happy in Switzerland about the US FATCA legislation that will be used to hunt down people avoiding US taxes, but it’s a surprise to hear that some Swiss burghers are feeling sorry for a group of US citizens who have become part of the fabric of society there.
