With the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) region among MasterCard’s strongest prepaid growth markets, the payment network is launching a new prepaid card program in Japan that has the potential to reach 34 million customers.
The spring and summer months boost gift card sales as consumers plan to buy them for a variety of occasions, including Mother’s Day on Sunday.
While the logjam over EMV debit routing may finally be breaking up, it remains unlikely that EMV will reach the mainstream ahead of the liability shifts the payment networks plan to implement in October 2015.
Suggesting that investments in digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, might carry with them a higher risk of fraud and a harder time recovering losses in the event of fraud or theft, the SEC yesterday issued an investor alert regarding the decentralized P2P currency.
Although this lawsuit involves lending practices, the industry would be wise to pay close attention because of its UDAAP implications, which are applicable to all entities the CFPB regulates.
Amazon blazed a fresh trail into social media this week with the debut of its new Twitter shopping feature enabling users to add items to their Amazon shopping carts directly from Twitter feeds.
Rules issued last December by Canada’s Department of Finance affecting open- and closed-loop prepaid cards went into effect May 1.
San Diego-headquartered Quippi is taking the fees out of remittances by offering gift cards that can be purchased online or in-store in the U.S. and redeemed by recipients in Mexico.
Nobody questions whether big data has a role to play in the payments industry, but many providers are grappling with how to capture and analyze the right data to improve their businesses.
Four out of five organisations are leaving themselves open to payment fraud because of a lack of standardised payment workflows, according to a study by financial technology vendor SunGard.
Digital gift cards are getting a boost in Canada as Blackhawk Network and Rogers Communications have opened Blackhawk’s digital gift card platform to users of the Rogers suretap mobile wallet app.
A group of the biggest financial institutions in the U.K. have banded together to launch a new P2P mobile payments system that by year-end will be accessible to 9 out of 10 bank account holders in the U.K.
Neither the costs of shepherding a card into stores nor increased competition has deterred new entrants from launching GPR prepaid cards. Providers are coming into the market with astute hooks that play to their strengths to attract and retain cardholders.
Apple entering the payments space has been a tantalizing prospect for many for a while now. It’s certainly something that would easily upset the status quo of the payments market, and I don’t believe Apple is aiming for the low-hanging fruit.
Management of metrics—such as average handle time, first call resolution, etc.—certainly results in cost saving. But exclusive focus on these metrics results in a huge missed opportunity to improve customer loyalty, increase sales and build brand identity.
What we know and what we can do before the final Plenary European Parliament vote on the Payments Package.
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank could be looking to get out ahead of Square’s eventual arrival Down Under.
A decree by the French government approving electronic corporate meal vouchers could open up a major opportunity for corporate prepaid card providers that can help employers move from paper to plastic.
The European Central Bank isn’t waiting for the Aug. 1 SEPA compliance deadline for direct debits and credit transfers to turn its attention to card transactions.
Confusion and concern over security is cited over and over again as the biggest barrier to widespread consumer uptake of mobile payments. And no wonder – confidence in the protection of sensitive cardholder data lies at the heart of trust in this technology. An EMV card as a physical asset is cryptographically secure. How can we emulate this security with something that is virtual?
The State of Delaware has thrown its weight behind a civil lawsuit claiming nearly two dozen well-known retailers avoided escheating unused gift card balances to the state by forming special entity corporations based outside the state.
Several major payments players recently have thrown their weight behind host card emulation (HCE), the technology many believe could be the key to finally bringing NFC-based mobile payments into the mainstream.
Just weeks after a report surfaced that Facebook was seeking an e-money license in Europe to boost its international remittance business, PicomoPay, a social networking payments platform, announced a deal with MoneyGram to enable U.S. Facebook users to send money transfers to more than 336,000 MoneyGram agent locations in more than 200 countries.
Prepaid cards continue to be the fastest-growing form of electronic payment, with the number of prepaid payments in the U.S. increasing 15.8 percent annually between 2009 and 2012, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s EconSouth.
U.S. Bank is going real-time with its P2P offerings and adding a few key new features in a field where the P2P ambitions of companies like Square, Google and Amazon are generating considerable interest.
CardFlight, a New York-based firm that enables developers to integrate in-person card payments into their own apps, has received the 2014 Technology Innovation Award from the Electronic Transactions Association.
First Data Corp., an Atlanta-based payments processor, has hired Jose Garcia to lead the company’s government solutions business.
Mint Wireless Ltd., an Australia-based mobile payments and transaction processing company, has appointed Alex Teoh executive chairman and Robin Khuda CEO.
The Retail Gift Card Association, a trade association of closed-loop gift card retailers committed to promoting and protecting the use of gift cards, announced the election of three new members to its board of director.
Spindle Inc., a provider of mobile commerce solutions, announced it has appointed Christopher J. Meinerz chief financial officer and chief compliance officer.
Visa Inc. has announced that Kelly Mahon Tullier will join the company as executive vice president and deputy general counsel. Ellen Richey, chief legal officer, chief risk officer and member of the executive committee, will continue in those roles through Sept. 30, 2014, when she will become vice chairman, risk and public policy.
While the payments landscape has evolved rapidly over the past decade, due to a flurry of innovation and regulation, expansive growth in electronic payments and the inclusion of new market entrants, industry research indicates that the next decade will be a period of even faster changes.
First the Wall Street Journal reported in November that Square Inc. was considering an IPO. Then acquisition rumors swirled after the newspaper reported this week that Square had been in M&A talks with companies including Google, Apple and PayPal.
Consumers may be embracing mobile apps, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re comfortable with or even aware of what their apps can do, a new study suggests.
LevelUp is tinkering again with the transaction fees it charges merchants for participating in its mobile wallet, cutting the cost from 2 percent to 1.95 percent as the SCVNGR-owned company seeks an appropriate balance for its bottom line.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released a final committee report on enhancing security in the country’s electronic payments sector with the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology.
Payment services provider Adyen has reported that one in five payments made on its network are now being made using a mobile device – a finding that reflects the rise of mobile payments worldwide, according to the firm.
While Google Wallet forges partnerships with merchants that don’t rely on NFC, one of contactless payments’ most high-profile skeptics may be coming around to seeing some real potential in the technology.
Gift Voucher Shop is opening its One4all multistore gift card program to independent retailers in Northern Ireland.
London-based Prepaid International Forum this week published a position paper outlining its concerns about certain provisions in the European Commission’s draft 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive.
