Payment protection insurance has dominated the coverage of complaints against banks for some time now, but many observers think that it is just the beginning of a wave of grievances about to engulf the retail banking industry.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is seeking to attract long-term investors who have become disillusioned with equity markets. Its new trading system, Instinct Natural, is a crossing network that is clearly geared towards customers that want to trade in blocks. But market participants have expressed concerns about its potential to meet the needs of long-term investors.
Weve, the advertising and commerce joint venture between mobile network operators Vodafone, O2 and EE, has hired payments industry veteran David Sear as its permanent chief executive.
Cover Story: The SEPA end date is now just a year away. Is everybody ready? Of course not.
Feb. 5, 2013 Visa Inc. has taken two more steps forward in the U.S. transition toward EMV by setting new deadlines and liability shift dates for third-party ATM acquirers and announcing that it would provide some of its proprietary EMV chip technology to debit card issuers free of charge to facilitate chip adoption industry-wide and to […]
Feb. 5, 2013 U.K.-based mobile payments provider mPowa has inked a white-label deal with Portugal Telecom Group that will enable the carrier to offer small businesses a card reader-based mobile payments service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but TechCrunch reports it was a multimillion-dollar pact with a seven-year term. The partnership opens […]
Feb. 5, 2013 Experian, an information services company and major credit bureau, has announced it will provide Cardplatforms LLC with its international authentication services to help the prepaid card services provider roll out prepaid cards worldwide. Cardplatforms will incorporate its prepaid card issuance network with Experian’s verification services, Prove-ID and AutoDoc-ID, to launch a payroll […]
Feb. 5, 2013 International not-for-profit trade association Prepaid International Forum (PIF) is launching a regional chapter for the Middle East. Executives from PIF’s regional Chapter Patron, TSYS, have been working with the association’s central body to coordinate the chapter launch, which will include an inaugural meeting on Feb. 18 in Dubai. Invited organizations will consider […]
Feb. 5, 2012 As of Feb. 1, Urban Trust Bank (UTB), a federally chartered community bank, is no longer offering overdraft protection on its Visa Prepaid Debit Cards. The decision comes after a “careful and thorough evaluation of the prepaid cards’ features in an effort to streamline the cards’ offerings and to best serve the […]
Further evidence that bank IT spending is growing again comes from industry analysts at Ovum, which is predicting overall growth of 3.4% among retail banks, reaching $118.6 billion in 2013, as they focus on “customer satisfaction and revenue growth”.
As the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer gets ready to announce the electrification of the banking ring-fence, we can expect a flurry of commentators telling us that the banking system is ‘not fit for purpose’.
Feb. 4, 2013 Prepaid issuer and program manager Green Dot Corp. said its revenue jumped 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to the previous year, with the growth largely due to upswings in card activation and consumer spending. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company took in $137.3 million in last year’s final three months, […]
Feb. 4, 2013 Facebook is expanding its brick-and-mortar gifting program with the launch of its own branded gift card. The Facebook Card began rolling out last week, the social network said in a blog post, with availability “gradually” expanding to more U.S. users. The preloaded card can be purchased within the Gift Cards & Digital […]
Feb. 4, 2013 New Jersey lawmakers in late January passed a bill designed to drive the state’s payroll system away from paper within 18 months by requiring all state employees to receive compensation by direct deposit beginning July 1, 2014. The bill, which passed the New Jersey Assembly by a vote of 74-0, also enables […]
Feb. 4, 2013 U.K.-based program manager Prepaid Financial Services Ltd. (PFS) and Deutsche Card Services (DeuCS), a Frankfurt-based acquirer and subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, have signed a strategic partnership to develop and deliver prepaid card solutions across Europe for corporate clients. PFS will provide the technology and support to enable DeuCS to offer new payment […]
Feb. 4, 2013 Senate Republicans have made it clear their opposition to the re-nomination of CFPB Director Richard Cordray, or any nominee, will not wane until their concerns about the agency are addressed. In a letter to President Barack Obama written by Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and signed by 43 Republican […]
Feb. 4, 2013 U.K. mobile wallet venture Weve this week announced it has completed the integration of Vodafone, its third mobile network operator, into its mobile advertising and commerce platform and a total of 15 million consumers, or 25 percent of the U.K. population, have opted in to the service. Weve, a joint venture of […]
The imposition of an £8 million fine against defunct Canadian day trading firm Swift Trade earlier this week illustrates the potential for abusive strategies that distort markets – and the need for a new approach from regulators, according to Matthew Coupe, director of regulation and market structure at NICE Actimize.
Hats off to Rising Sum, which has built a platform that identifies investment opportunities “using the acquisition criteria favoured by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet’s highly successful investment vehicle”.
Technical problems at Nasdaq and BATS have reinforced the impression among many market observers that there may be something seriously wrong with equity market structure. Recent history reads like a catalogue of disaster for many of the world’s most prominent trading venues.
As the global payments markets changes, Western Union has plans to change with it. Massimiliano Alvisini, regional director UK, Ireland & Nordics explains how and why.
Earlier this month, Banking Technology suffered a post-Mayan apocalypse shock. A weighty report landed on our desks, informing us that the global economy is likely finished, and that the end of civilisation is nigh.
New research from Experian shows that “only 65% of euro transactions have fully accurate destination routing data and 12% of electronic payments made to and from businesses in euros currently contain data errors”.
The enterprise is experiencing massive changes as the major technology trends of cloud computing and tablets are intersecting to upset the balance of legacy computing environments.
February 2013 VocaLink, a London-based international payment provider, recently announced three senior hires. Nick Millar joins as strategy and customer insight director, Jim Wadsworth as product development director and Phil Harrison as commercial director, alternative payments. They report to Paul Stoddart, managing director of strategy and business development. Millar joins VocaLink from Visa Europe, where […]
February 2013 Payza, an online payment platform, has promoted Mohammad Hashemi to the newly created position of vice president of strategy. He will be responsible for implementing Payza’s overall business strategy and global expansion by spearheading its partner acquisition efforts. As Payza’s director of product strategy, Hashemi managed the life cycle of the company’s products, […]
February 2013 Austria-based paysafecard group has appointed Gerhard Falb as chief marketing officer. He is responsible for the management of all marketing activities, nationally and internationally. Falb has extensive experience in leadership and marketing, which he gained at mobile operator ONE (now Orange), bwin and Michelin Austria, among others. Before joining the company, Falb worked […]
February 2013 Mozido LLC, a startup that focuses on cloud-based, white-label mobile payments services for banks and merchants, has appointed Steve Bacastow and Charlie Wiggs to its management team. As senior vice president of operations, Bacastow is responsible for leading all company operations functions with a focus on maximizing growth and profitability and meeting compliance […]
February 2013 Diebold Inc.’s board of directors has elected Henry D.G. Wallace as chairman of the board. He has been a member of the Diebold board since 2003. Wallace is a former group vice president and chief financial officer at Ford Motor Co. During his 30-year career at Ford, he held numerous positions in finance […]
February 2013 Consult Hyperion, a London-based IT consultancy that specializes in secure electronic transactions, has opened a U.S. office in New York City. Lanny Byers and Howard Hall have been chosen to lead the U.S. headquarters, and they will serve as co-managing directors and report to CEO Neil McEvoy. Byers has more than 20 years of […]
UK retail banks could be forced to share branch premises with rivals under plans to increase competition in the market, according to the chief executive of the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, Clive Maxwell.
Jan. 31, 2013 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today announced it has begun an inquiry into “the impact of financial products marketed to students through colleges and universities” to determine whether these products are “in the best interest” of students. Such products include student ID cards that double as debit cards and cards used […]
Jan. 31, 2013 In a move intended to deepen its mobile payments offerings, banking and payments technology expert Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) today said it will pay $120 million to acquire mFoundry, the mobile banking app firm that helped devise Starbucks’ vaunted mobile payments operation, among others. The transaction will give FIS the remaining […]
Jan. 31, 2013 Money transfer and global financial services provider Western Union Co. has expanded its Receive remittance card to Costa Rica and Guatemala. Initially launched in El Salvador last June, Receive enables recipients of Western Union money transfers to put all or part of the transferred funds onto a MasterCard-branded prepaid card. The company […]
Jan. 31, 2013 Social media giant Facebook Inc. closed out its first calendar year as a public company with $1.59 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, up 40 percent from $1.13 billion in 2011’s fourth quarter, with the improvement spurred mainly by a surge in mobile ad revenue. The proportion of Facebook’s advertising revenue from mobile devices […]
A study shows that 62% of City traders “admit to missing key investment or sell opportunities because they didn’t keep track of time zone differences”.
The public perception of banks has been battered in recent years, but financial institutions have been working hard to repair the damage. A key tool in their strategy has been to improve customer service in a multichannel environment.
Jan. 30, 2013 State unemployment recipients who receive their benefits on prepaid cards are saving millions due to lower fees and improved services, according to a new report by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC). The results of the agency’s 2013 Survey of Unemployment Prepaid Cards were an improvement over the NCLC’s 2011 study, which […]
Jan. 30, 2013 Citigroup Inc. and Visa Inc. are joining forces in the Philippines to launch the new Pag-IBIG Citi Prepaid Card, which could reach as many as 13 million Filipinos through its link to the nation’s social security program. The reloadable Visa card is available to all citizens who belong to the Philippine government’s […]
Jan. 30, 2013 Merchants across the U.S. are holding off on introducing a surcharge for Visa and MasterCard credit card transactions despite getting the green light to do so this week under the terms of a proposed settlement in the merchants’ antitrust case reached last November. The settlement, subject to final approval in a hearing […]
