Gift cards once again are topping consumers’ 2013 holiday wish lists, with a twist: Santa will deliver more gift cards than ever via mobile devices and there will be plenty of caffeine for all, according to the National Retail Federation’s latest consumer survey forecasting a record $29.8 billion in total gift card spending. “As more […]
Austria-based e-voucher provider paysafecard group is expanding its services to Australia, the company has announced. Citing Down Under as “one of the world’s leading countries in terms of digital development,” paysafecard is launching there with more than 12,000 retail partners out of the gate. “We enter the Australian market with high expectations as we see […]
New York State and federal officials plan to take a hard look at virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, to determine whether they need to be regulated. The U.S. Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs plans to meet this afternoon to consider how virtual currencies are affecting law enforcement and banking. Pay News will […]
While many industry players are betting that smartphone-based digital wallets will someday replace cards, one startup is offering a wallet that takes the form of a card. San Francisco-based Coin has unveiled a new payment card-sized device with a magnetic strip that can hold the credentials of up to eight payment, gift and loyalty cards. […]
Swift’s head of banking talks about how the industry co-operative plans to build services based the data flowing through its interbank messaging systems.
Change is coming to the prepaid card industry, whether by regulation or legislation, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray promised lawmakers this week at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, but he declined to provide a timetable. “[Prepaid cards] are one of the problem areas in consumer financial protection because they’re a hole in the […]
McDonald’s is embracing PayPal at the POS in all of its French locations, after a successful pilot with the San Jose, Calif.-based payments company. The Oakbrook, Ill.-based fast food giant McDonald’s Corp. said its mobile payment program with PayPal will be live in all of its restaurants in France by the end of the year, […]
Ubiquity Global Services has raised more than $4 million in Series B funding from existing investors to support its global expansion and additional technology investments, the business process outsourcing company announced yesterday. The funds also will be used to scale operations to keep pace with the growth and customer demand since Ubiquity’s founding in 2012, […]
It’s official; Blackhawk Network’s purchase of corporate incentive and promotions provider InteliSpend Prepaid Solutions has closed, with InteliSpend now operating as a business unit of Blackhawk. First announced in October, the all-cash acquisition was billed by Blackhawk as a way to capitalize on the “great synergies” between Blackhawk’s own retail gift card partners and InteliSpend’s […]
Three years after its initial unveiling, the Isis digital wallet has finally rolled out nationwide but Isis faces numerous competitors and a lingering uncertainty over NFC payments.
Bitcoin grabbed headlines again this week—following a flurry of other recent developments—with the news that Raj Date, former deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, joined the board of a company devoted to helping the virtual currency go mainstream.
As Ts are crossed and Is are dotted by financial institutions and corporates preparing for the Single Euro Payments Area some recent announcements point to the glittering world of opportunity beyond mundane SEPA compliance.
New OCC guidance reminds financial institutions that third-party oversight is where it’s at.
Compliance concerns are causing nearly one-third of banks to turn away business, according to a new report from Aite Group.
The cost to consumers of using a reloadable prepaid card continues to decline, while direct deposit-based checking accounts on average cost more than twice that of direct deposit-based GPR cards, suggest the results from the fourth annual “Analysis of General Purpose Reloadable Card” study released today. Bretton Woods Inc. compared a broad range of checking […]
Prepaid product and transaction services provider InComm is giving retailers a new way to offer gift cards to their customers via mobile device.
An agreement announced today between Telecom Italia and Visa Europe will bring mobile payments capabilities to more than 31 million Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) customers throughout Italy, enabling them to make contactless payments using certain NFC-equipped smartphones at POS terminals across Europe.
Merchants using Square for payment card transactions no longer will have the option of paying a flat monthly rate to process payments, effective Feb. 1, 2014.
It’s unclear whether the prepaid industry will have the CFPB’s proposed rules for GPR cards by Dec. 31, or if the wait will extend into 2014.
Olympic boxer José Carlos Ramirez is lending his name and image to a new prepaid card from Global Payout Inc. The JC Ramirez Prepaid Discover Card has no minimum balance fees and offers instant account alerts via text message or email as well as a special security feature that enables a cardholder to turn the […]
Mobile network operator Orange is teaming with Visa Europe in a strategic partnership to roll out its Orange Cash NFC-based mobile payments in France in the latest example of a prepaid card-based approach to contactless payment.
Bitcoin has been making news on a regular basis recently as lawmakers and businesses around the globe deal with the virtual currency’s rapid rise. The past few days have added to the frenzy with a flurry of developments that could help shape Bitcoin’s future. Late last week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) indicated it could […]
San Francisco-based Square Inc.—one of many m-POS device providers, but the company with arguably the greatest name recognition—created buzz this week after a report that Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey might take the company public.
Payroll card industry participants should brace for more potential negative news as lawmakers and plaintiffs’ attorneys around the U.S. continue fishing for outlier examples of payroll card abuse, observers say. The industry’s antennae shot up earlier this week when Pennsylvania lawmakers followed through on an earlier promise and proposed legislation to ban payroll cards. Separately, […]
U.S. Bank, lead bank of U.S. Bancorp and one of the first big banks to roll out a prepaid GPR card, this week has launched the Visa-branded U.S. Bank Contour Card. “General purpose reloadable cards appeal to a broad demographic, from customers who have bank accounts and want to segregate certain types of spending to […]
The U.S. travel industry has a new inroad into the world’s top-spending travel market, now that UATP—a travel payment network owned by a consortium of airlines—is working with Chinese cross-border payment provider Alipay. The pact enables American airlines, hotels and other travel businesses to connect to the more than 800 million Chinese account holders on […]
Canada seems poised to become the next battleground in the mobile wallet wars with a pair of new wallets joining the fray—one from a telecom provider, and the other from a team of banks.
PayPal’s pending acquisition of Braintree will broaden its scope of innovative digital commerce solutions, support its developer platform overhaul and bring P2P competitor Venmo into the fold.
Mobile payments company Skrill has launched a mobile app that it says can send money to anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. The app has several uses, including cross-border remittance payments to various countries in eastern Europe and around the world.
Issuers or program managers that focus marketing efforts on the savings that can be achieved through HSAs could increase account take-up and improve the profitability for those accounts at the same time.
Las Vegas hosted the 21st Annual ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum last month, where industry stakeholders were abuzz about monetizing mobile and big data and, surprisingly, credit.
Could college campuses serve as labs for U.S. NFC payment adoption? The answer may depend on the results of pilots launched last month at two midsize universities.
Square Inc. is turning up the heat in the m-POS race with a major promotion with Staples to drive sales of its Square Stand POS solution to smaller brick-and-mortar merchants.
Borrowers of short-term and payday loans use up to an average of 36 percent of their periodic wages to pay back those loans—far more than they typically can afford, according to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts, which calls on regulators to make such loans safer and more transparent. “Payday Lending in America: […]
Mobile payments are spreading fast in Brazil, with nearly half of the country’s consumers having made a purchase on a tablet device between May and June 2013, while almost 30 percent did so via a mobile phone, according to a new study. The research, conducted by Mobi.life on behalf of Brazilian mobile payments company Pagtel, […]
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) late last week issued a fact sheet on Section 314(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act, offering guidance to help financial institutions understand permissible use of information sharing related to AML and counter-terrorist financing efforts. The fact sheet highlights the benefits of sharing information, which organizations are eligible to participate […]
The high double-digit growth numbers in prepaid fall to single digits as the industry faces regulatory uncertainty and a sluggish economic recovery.
Just over a year since launching the Bluebird prepaid card with American Express, retail giant Walmart is expanding its suite of prepaid products, adding six new cards to its Paybefore Award-winning line of GPR cards—all issued by Green Dot Corp.’s Green Dot Bank. Four of the new cards will be under Walmart’s own MoneyCard brand. The […]
Payroll cards are coming under fire again, after lawmakers in Pennsylvania last week proposed a ban on all payroll cards and a new lawsuit filed in federal court in California alleges payroll card abuses by a major U.S. apparel maker. The moves suggest more challenges ahead for payroll card companies, which came under attack earlier […]
Citibank Hong Kong and 3 Hong Kong, the mobile operation of Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings Ltd., have launched 3 Citi Wallet for mobile subscribers of 3 Hong Kong and Citibank Visa cardholders.
