Walmart has rolled out its mobile payment service to all of its 4,600 U.S. stores. And although some analysts are skeptical the service will attract shoppers, the retailer is reporting a 45 percent jump in transactions already.
The government of Saudi Arabia has banned in-person sales of one of the leading online payment products in the Middle East over concerns about money laundering and terrorist financing. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency—the country’s central bank—has barred the sale of CASHU prepaid cards through local agents, though consumers still may purchase cards from the company’s Website.
A months-long investigation that spanned from Malaysia to 14 European countries resulted last week in the bust of a credit card fraud ring allegedly responsible for approximately €5 million (US$5.5 million) in losses. The police investigation led to the arrest of 105 suspects, 29 in Malaysia and 76 in Europe.
Omni Hotels & Resorts notified customers last week that hackers accessed the chain’s POS systems and installed malware that enabled them to access payment card information. In an alert posted on its Website, Omni said it discovered the attacks on May 30, 2016, and that the malware may have operated between Dec. 23, 2015, and June 14, 2016—although most of the systems were affected during a shorter time frame, the company said.
Swift is turning to outside help as it looks to improve security on its network following a number of hacking incidents. It has engaged cyber security firms BAE Systems and Fox-IT, and created a Forensics and Customer Security Intelligence team, as it wants to investigate security incidents “within customer environments”. The move follows a spate […]
The key to unlocking the potential of real-time money movement is the delivery of an intuitive and seamless experience across accounts. As demand grows among early adopters—underserved consumers, millennials and those in the “gig” economy—a larger, more mainstream consumer audience will take note and engage.
Sure, mobile payments are taking much of the developing world by storm, giving consumers safer and more efficient ways to handle money. But merchant acceptance lags. Here’s why, along with ideas for improvement.
Brexit likely will cause issues for major processors and cross-border acquirers for whom London has been a key European and cross-border processing hub. That’s in addition to a restricted market and reduced talent pool.
If politicians were held to the same truthfulness and disclosure standards as businesspeople, the U.K. might have avoided its regrettable decision to leave the EU.
UniRush LLC, a provider of consumer financial services, including the Visa RushCard prepaid debit card and the rapid! PayCard, has named industry veteran Ron Hynes CEO. A 2014 Pay Award Industry Achievement Winner, Hynes previously served as executive vice president of global prepaid solutions at MasterCard Worldwide and, most recently, as president of global markets at Mozido.
Following up on its promise to tighten rules for prepaid cards and virtual currencies in an effort to thwart terrorism financing and money laundering, the European Commission has released a proposal this week to lower the threshold that triggers cardholder identification requirements for prepaid cards and ban the use of anonymous prepaid cards online.
Although the overall number of prepaid card-related complaints continues to represent less than 1 percent of total complaints the CFPB receives, prepaid complaints were up 28 percent in May to 226 from 177 the previous month, according to the federal consumer protection agency’s latest monthly complaint report.
MasterCard faces a $24.5 billion class action suit in the U.K. over its cross-border interchange fees. The suit arrives two years after the European Union labeled the interchange charged by the payment card network as unfair. European interchange caps went into effect in December of 2015.
ACI Worldwide, a global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, has announced the appointment of Marco Bravo as vice president for Latin America.
MetaBank has announce that Susan Cunningham has assumed the position of senior vice president of sales for the company’s premium finance division, AFS/IBEX.
Since launching a year ago, the Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization (CPPO) has made strides to educate and build awareness about the growing open-loop prepaid market in Canada.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has announced the retirement of Cottrell Webster as the FDIC’s ombudsman, a role he has held since 2002.
Robert Courtneidge, global head of the cards and payments practice in the London office of Locke Lord LLP, has been selected again by the Payments Power 10, marking his fifth consecutive year on the highly competitive ranking.
MasterCard has announced the appointment of four senior executives in China, which the payments network describes as one of its most significant and largest markets.
MasterCard has appointed Emily Baum to the company’s prepaid management services team focusing on the U.K. and Irish markets.
Retailer advocacy group and services provider the National Merchants Association has appointed Tim Reynolds to the role of director of member support.
Payments processor TSYS has been recognized as one of America’s most community-minded companies in The Civic 50, an initiative that identifies and recognizes companies for their commitment to improving the quality of life in the communities where they do business.
Viral Technologies, a Portland, Maine-based financial technology predictive analytics provider, recently rebranded as Acclaimed Labs.
Last week’s federal court rejection of a 4-year-old $5.7 billion interchange fee settlement has retailers applauding, and Visa and MasterCard gearing up for what could be years of ongoing ligation and perhaps a stop at the Supreme Court.
The U.K.’s historic decision to exit the European Union (or Brexit) last month has left many businesses speculating what the ramifications will be for them, especially e-money issuers based in the U.K. that have licenses that they passport to EU countries. Neopay, a U.K.-based e-money and payment regulatory consultancy, is hoping to assuage the jitters of new and established e-money companies in Europe with Brexit Insurance.
In a pair of legal battles that could have a ripple effect into the payments and retail sectors, Facebook and Google have invoked a recent Supreme Court decision and the U.S. Constitution to defend against claims that the companies’ facial recognition systems violate a key state biometric privacy law.
Indian payment solutions provider ItzCash Card Ltd. has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to participate in the country’s integrated bill payments platform, known as the Bharat Bill Payments System (BBPS).
There are three options of a road ahead for the payments industry players: 1) to carry on as they are and watch their margins erode; 2) to transform into a utility; 3) to have a long hard look at their value chain. If you choose the latter – what do you see, asks Sapient Global Markets’ Leda […]
Wirecard has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Citi Prepaid Card Services – giving it an expansion into North America. The firm says Citi Prepaid card services have launched over 2,500 client programmes, associated with global companies and brands, but primarily in North America. Subject to the usual regulatory approvals, the deal is expected to […]
When I first started travelling for my job, it wasn’t too afield. I was working in Australia so it involved trips to New Zealand, Singapore and not much more. However, in only a few years, my travel grew to where it became routine to visit the US, Germany and the UK, but with the aircraft […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Brexit threat to UK jobs at Visa Should I stay or should I go? Swift hackers steal $10m from Ukraine bank Massive attack. New challenger bank readies for launch in UK Atten-shun! UK military personnel, veterans and their […]
Visa has filed a lawsuit against Walmart in a dispute over customers’ use of signatures or PINs to verify purchases with EMV-equipped debit cards at Walmart. Last month, Walmart sued Visa, claiming the payments network required the retailer to offer EMV debit users the option of signature or PIN verification in violation of the Durbin Amendment.
The sale will give Blackboard control of Higher One’s CASHNet platform, which provides billing and payments services to more than 700 campuses and millions of students across the U.S.
That would provide some long-awaited certainty to financial service providers and tech companies like Google and Facebook that handle consumers’ personal information.
Bottomline Technologies has launched its Universal Aggregator for payments and the accreditation of its “Faster Payment” processing capability. Bottomline Universal Aggregator has been designed to give banks, corporates, governments and non-financial banking institutions an “easy plug-in” to an array of payment clearing and settlement systems around the world. The “first-of-its-kind” service provides a single interface […]
Wirecard AG has been making numerous deals and acquisitions over the past several months to expand its global footprint, but today’s news that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Citi Prepaid Services puts it firmly on the map in North America.
U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) are demanding answers from Green Dot, MasterCard and Walmart about a May outage that left Green Dot-issued Walmart MoneyCard customers without access to certain prepaid services. The senators also asked MasterCard to distinguish the circumstances between the Green Dot outage and the one RushCard experienced October 2015 when it switched to MasterCard’s processing platform.
The companies say they will make accepting online payments easier for the more than 20,000 business customers who use Microsoft Dynamics software in 13 markets.
First filed in 2011 by a consortium of consumers, independent ATM operators and the National ATM Council, the suit alleges that payment networks’ ATM fee policies suppressed competition by barring ATM operators from offering discounts to users who transact via networks other than MasterCard or Visa.
In fiscal year 2015, 98 percent of the $3.98 trillion remitted to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Services came through electronic payments.
