The People’s Bank of China (PBC), the country’s central bank, this week has revoked the license of Shanghai Chang Gou Enterprise Services, a prepaid card-issuing company, preventing it from selling prepaid cards, according to Reuters.
Two payday lenders have settled Federal Trade Commission charges over allegedly hitting customers undisclosed and inflated fees.
Closed-loop gift cards appear poised for growth for the second consecutive holiday season after 2012 and 2013 declines, thanks in part to last-minute shopping and young consumers, according to a new report from Mercator Advisory Group Inc.
Idaho’s Department of Agriculture is the first government department to launch the eGovExpress digital wallet developed by Olathe, Kan.-based NIC Inc., provider of official government Web portals and digital government services for more than 3,500 federal, state and local government agencies.
While the mainstay of the financial services industry was busy dealing with the global financial crisis in 2008, start-up organisations in Silicon Valley, New York, London and other major financial and technology hubs were turning their attention away from social media plays and looking to reinvent financial services.
The CFPB needs to return to its original plans on prepaid regulations and put its proposed rules on a New Year’s diet. By issuing rules focusing solely on disclosure, the CFPB could issue guidance earlier in 2016 that would help consumers, prevent access disruptions, and potentially reduce the size of the landfill needed to for the mountains of noncompliant cards and marketing materials.
The CFPB yesterday released its “Safe Student Account Toolkit,” which includes a scorecard to help colleges pick the best school-sponsored deposit or prepaid accounts for their students.
Technology is transforming trust to the point that people find themselves trusting others with whom they’ve had no experience, on eBay or Facebook, more than banks they’ve dealt with their whole lives.
London-based B2B fintech company Currency Cloud recently released a trend report revealing the need for faster, less expensive and less complicated ways to make cross-border business payments. With $18 million in funding fueling its U.S. expansion, Currency Cloud says it’s taking on those cross-border pain points.
It’s almost become a holiday tradition for Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to propose prepaid legislation in December. His previous three attempts went nowhere, but this time he proposed his bill in November. Still, more pressing issues, such as spending and cybersecurity, may keep his measure on the back burner for now.
The European Union’s cap on fees banks can charge retailers for processing credit and debit card payments went into effect today, but there are some questions whether the measure will have the desired effect.
Target is moving another step forward in its attempts to put its 2013 data breach behind it.
In a Congressional hearing yesterday, lawmakers examined the role mobile payments technologies are playing in disrupting traditional payments, paying particular attention to how mobile has increased payments security and enabled small businesses and underbanked consumers to access electronic payments.
U.S. shoppers flocked to physical and online stores during the Thanksgiving weekend, with more than 151 million Americans shopping in-store and/or online, based on data from the National Retail Federation. The shopping frenzy is expected to continue, with Cyber Monday deals projected to drive 121 million U.S. consumers to shop online. Average spending per shopper was $299.60, and gift cards were especially popular, comprising a whopping 76.6 percent ($229.56) of that average total.
Instant payments are a step closer to becoming a reality in Europe, now that the European Payments Council (EPC) has submitted and received approval on its proposal for the design of a pan-European instant credit transfer framework.
It’s no secret that past risk management practices and regulatory frameworks failed with respect to the global financial crisis. There were a number of reasons behind this, ranging from an overreliance on quantitative analysis to poor risk governance and frameworks, not to mention a lack of understanding around concentrated risk build-up such as leverage, convexity […]
It is a well-known fact that banks have two types of technology: Cold War-era IBM mainframes running Cobol-based batch programmes and Evil Genius HFT systems. The mundane truth is that any financial services operation will have a range of hardware and software systems of different vintages and spend a lot of time and money living with the consequences.
Craig James explains how passporting with an e-money license allows U.S. prepaid companies to conduct business in EU countries.
Retailers argue the semantics between calling a price difference a “surcharge” or a “discount.”
Federal prosecutors have charged a trio of accused cybercriminals in a wide-ranging hacking and fraud scheme Attorney General Loretta Lynch called “one of the largest thefts of financial-related data in history.”
A 30-second advertisement that aired during last night’s Republican presidential debate took aim at the CFPB and likely raised the hackles of the bureau’s proponents.
Eighteen U.S. senators led by Cory Booker (D-N.J.), sent a letter last week to the CFPB urging protections for prisoners released from jail who receive prepaid cards when they exit incarceration.
Companies seeking to appeal a supervisory action undertaken by the CFPB have to play by some new rules, now that the agency has revised its appeals process.
Chief marketing officers at 100 U.S. retailers are expecting a 4.2 percent increase in holiday season total store sales this year, which is in line with last year’s 4.1 percent increase, according to a the 10th annual survey from BDO USA, a professional services firm and consultancy.
Legislators and regulators are grappling with how to apply existing money transmitter laws to an emerging industry. Read about the challenges and latest developments across the U.S.
States are getting into the EMV with PIN push, which they say will provide better fraud protection.
A class action related to the Kmart breach in 2014 was struck down.
The New York State Department of Labor this week reissued its proposed rule on payroll cards (see page 7 of PDF), which is similar to the one issued in May. Although some of the DOL’s changes are favorable to the industry, lingering provisions, particularly those around banned fees, will prove problematic to payroll card business models.
The U.S. Department of Education released its final regulation regarding Title IV funds disbursement before the Nov. 1 deadline, which means the regulations will go into effect July 1, 2016, and apply to the 2016-2017 school year.
Despite reassurances from UniRush Chairman and CEO Rick Savard earlier this week that the company is working around the clock to address any remaining cardholder issues arising from its recent technology migration, CFPB Director Richard Cordray today offered his two cents on the matter, saying the bureau will use “all appropriate tools at our disposal to help ensure that consumers obtain the relief that they deserve.”
The National Retail Federation’s annual holiday survey puts gift cards on top as the most requested holiday gift for the ninth consecutive year. Plus, consumers share plans for their most mobile holiday shopping season yet.
Competition from financial technology companies and regulatory changes are forcing banks to adopt APIs to provide access to client information, which has many implications across the industry.
Sluggish economic growth in developed nations means attention is still focused on the growth markets of the Brics nations. As intra-regional trade grows, local knowledge is becoming a valued commodity.
From its tentative early steps to open the Swift network to corporations, Swift has been steadily building its corporate membership. Swift membership is increasingly an option for not only large multinationals, but also medium sized companies. Daily News at Sibos looks at the current status of Swift for Corporates.
Court considers whether it’s permissible for a discount for using cash or a surcharge for using credit cards.
A high-end fitness company selling tickets to reserve a spot in a specific class at a designated date and time comes under scrutiny for violating the CARD Act.
Borders gift cardholders do not get to claim $210 million in unredeemed gift card funds.
Target Corp., Amazon.com and a host of other retailers continue to challenge MasterCard, Visa and several large banks over the terms of a $7.25 billion settlement reached in 2013. The settlement was supposed to end the retailers’ claims that the banks and MasterCard and Visa artificially inflated interchange fees. Several of the largest retailers, however, […]
America has led Europe in payments innovation. Europe has led in payments regulation. The recent rubberstamping of PSD2 in Brussels suggests that’s likely to continue.
Shared utilities could save institutions as much as 40% of their current processing costs, but there are challenges to implementation.
