July 2013 Ballard Spahr LLC recently announced the opening of its 14th office—this one in New York City—that will expand the firm’s capabilities in representing banks and other financial institutions in a wide range of consumer financial services regulatory matters, litigation and government investigations, according to the firm. The New York office operates under the […]
The International Card Manufacturers Association (ICMA) continues to honor innovators in card manufacturing through its Élan Awards for Card Manufacturing Excellence, and many prepaid programs were recognized as finalists and winners this year. The awards were presented last month during the association’s Annual Card Manufacturing and Personalization EXPO in Washington, D.C. “The graphics on many […]
By Loraine DeBonis, Editor-in-Chief On the final day of the NBPCA’s Power of Prepaid conference in Washington, D.C., last month, experts shared results from two recent studies that shed light on how U.S. consumers conduct their financial lives and where prepaid providers can fill a need. While the first shows encouraging signs about prepaid adoption […]
By Bill Grabarek, Senior Editor True to the pioneering spirit of the University of Oklahoma’s moniker, the Sooners (a nickname for settlers during the land rush of the late 1800s), OU is traversing a path seemingly untrodden by other colleges and universities. OU’s Office of the Bursar recently launched the OU Gift Card, enabling friends […]
July 16, 2013 Shanghai-based payment card network UnionPay continues to expand its NFC-based mobile payment offerings, launching a new smartphone app for contactless payments last week. Dubbed simply Wallet, the app enables users to link card accounts from eight participating Chinese banks to NFC-enabled smartphones from China Mobile and make purchases at POS terminals via […]
July 16, 2013 Cloud-based payment processor i2c Inc. has signed a deal to provide prepaid card processing services to Heartland Payment Systems. The collaboration will kick off with i2c taking over processing duties for Heartland’s National Restaurant Association (NRA) Edge payroll card program, which enables restaurant employees to load their paychecks and outside funds onto […]
July 16, 2013 Consumers in Brazil soon will be able to purchase Ukash vouchers in Brazilian currency at participating Petrobas and other independent stores across the country, and spend those vouchers at 3,500 e-commerce and digital entertainment Websites. Ukash, a London-based prepaid voucher provider and Paybefore Award winner, yesterday announced an agreement with Now Prepay Servicos […]
The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) again is urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to prohibit overdraft on prepaid products and limit the ways in which credit and prepaid may be associated.
July 15, 2013 In a protracted battle over several of President Barack Obama’s nominations, including his appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week filed cloture motions to force votes on seven nominees in an effort to bypass what he called “blatant […]
July 15, 2013 China’s central bank has granted new third-party payment licenses to 27 companies, including the first-ever foreign-funded payment service providers to receive licenses—Edenred China and Sodexo Pass China (Shanghai). Since the Peoples Bank of China (PBC) began issuing the licenses in May 2011, a total of 250 nonbank institutions have been granted the […]
July 15, 2013 A group of 16 U.S. Senators are calling on government regulators to investigate the fees and practices association with payroll cards. In a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Labor, the Senators said that all fees attached to prepaid cards must be clearly disclosed to employees who have […]
July 15, 2013 TIO Networks Corp., a Vancouver, B.C.-based expedited payments service provider, announced on Friday it will acquire Globex Financial Services Inc. and its Global Express Money Orders business. TIO expects to close on the deal for the Silver Spring, Md.-based bill payment services provider later this year. TIO plans to cross-sell its mobile […]
Patrice Peyret of Banking Up responds to a front-page article in the New York Times, “Paid via Card, Workers Feel Sting of Fees.”
July 11, 2013 Another major piece of MCX’s jigsaw puzzle fell into place today with the announcement that payments technology provider FIS will provide the payments processing platform, including transaction routing and settlement, for the retail consortium’s evolving mobile commerce system. Jacksonville, Fla.-based FIS will execute mobile payments at participating retailer outlets in combination with […]
July 11, 2013 By the end of 2013, European consumers will be making more than 52 million contactless transactions every month, according to a projection by Visa Europe. That would represent a marked increase from 2012, which saw a total of 147 million contactless transactions. The rapid increase in NFC-enabled smartphones and digital wallets coming […]
July 11, 2013 Consumers continued to demonstrate strong spending habits in June, according to the latest SpendTrend data released by First Data Corp., an Atlanta-based payments processor. Wet weather that dampened demand on the East Coast in the early part of the month was offset by warmer weather across the rest of the U.S., leading […]
July 11, 2013 Seattle-area Metro riders who bike to transit stations have a new option for storing their cycles, thanks to a series of new “eLockers” that can be rented on an hourly basis using a stored value card. The lockers—located at 10 Metro stations throughout the Seattle area—are provided by BikeLink, a secure on-demand […]
Uncertainty over the mechanism for calculating the Libor benchmark in future remains in the wake of the generally applauded appointment of NYSE Euronext as its new administrator.
The prepaid industry must seize on the recent media frenzy as an opportunity to inform and educate the public, government officials and other policymakers.
Regulators regulate, and when they do act, it can have dramatic impact on a company’s business model.
Tori Blake and Chuck Rouse explain the new rules of breakage connected to the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board’s upcoming Revenue Recognition Standards.
July 9, 2013 Money transfer giant Western Union Co. continues to expand its payment product offerings and grow its global footprint, unveiling a new payroll card in the United Arab Emirates and money transfer services in India. In the U.A.E, Western Union and Commercial Bank of Dubai have announced a new, co-branded prepaid payroll card […]
July 9, 2013 Prepaid processor and program manager TransCard has announced a new self-service gift card kiosk targeted for placement in shopping malls. Known as RUBY, the automated kiosk enables shoppers to select a gift card denomination, enter payment and receive the card without the assistance of a customer service mall employee. “After studying the […]
July 9, 2013 A Bitcoin wallet developer in Kenya this month launched a service enabling locals to send and receive the virtual currency to most nations around the world using any Internet-enabled mobile phone or desktop computer, with the capability of converting Bitcoins to M-Pesa, Kenya’s popular mobile money service. Nairobi-based Kipochi Ltd (Kipochi means […]
July 9, 2013 State Bank of India (SBI) has partnered with Indian forex firm UAE Exchange and Financial Services Ltd. to launch a co-branded prepaid card enabling users to receive remittances directly on the card. The State Bank Xpress Money Card, which runs on the Visa network, can be loaded with up to Rs50,000 (US$831.90) […]
July 8, 2013 With security among the most important issues for providers and users of mobile payments, a group of banks is working to develop a new standard to improve mobile transaction security online and at POS. The Clearing House (TCH), a banking association and payments company whose 22 member banks include Bank of America, […]
July 8, 2013 Mobile payments in Poland may soon take a major step forward now that six leading Polish banks are working together to develop a mobile device-based, in-store payment system set to debut by the end of this year. The banks involved include Poland’s largest lender, PKO Bank Polski, and together account for 70 […]
July 8, 2013 PrivatBank, a Ukraine-based financial institution, has launched a contactless mobile POS offering that enables small businesses to accept card payments by scanning the card using a smartphone and its iPay application. The mPOS service is available to corporate and private customers in Ukraine and Russia, according to PrivatBank, which says it is […]
July 8, 2013 Banks are finding more ways to enrich their mobile payments offerings with technology making it easier for consumers to redeem digital coupons with their credit, debit or prepaid cards. Through its Corporation for American Banking subsidiary, the American Bankers Association (ABA) this month endorsed Linkable Networks’ card-linked offer technology designed to distribute […]
July 3, 2013 New York’s attorney general is looking into prepaid payroll card programs at some of the state’s largest employers, following a report in the July 1 New York Times, which characterized payroll cards as laden with fees. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has sent letters to about 20 employers seeking information about their programs, […]
July 3, 2013 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized its rule outlining procedures to supervise nonbanks engaged in conduct that poses risk to consumers. The CFPB may supervise not only nonbank providers of consumer financial products and services, but its authority also extends to a nonbank’s affiliate service providers, according to the rule. The […]
July 3, 2013 Chicago area transit riders soon will be able to pay fares with a tap, now that the city’s Open Standards Fare System is set to make its debut in August with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and suburban bus operator Pace. Known as Ventra, the system is a partnership between Cubic Transportation […]
July 3, 2013 Prepaid cardholders’ customer service needs vary widely based on the type of card they are calling about, according to new research Contact Solutions LLC, and analyzing those patterns can go a long way toward cutting operating costs, the firm says. Cardholders of large government prepaid card programs make an average of 5.5 calls per […]
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has appointed Jennifer Boussuge as head of Global Transaction Services for EMEA. Boussuge has been with the company for more than 19 years, during which time she has held a number of leadership roles, most recently as head of global sales for GTS.
July 2, 2013 The latest mobile payments startup dazzling Silicon Valley tech investors is Clinkle Corp., which last week announced it has raised $25 million from several high-profile backers to launch a payment platform already in pilot at Stanford University. Details are scanty so far, but Clinkle reportedly is a smartphone app that links to […]
July 2, 2013 Intuit Inc. has agreed to sell its financial services division, known as IFS, to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for just over $1 billion. The deal, which is still subject to regulatory approval, would cover Intuit’s corporate-targeted Internet banking platform, digital payments, mobile banking and purchase rewards business. Certain assets currently within […]
July 2, 2013 London-based Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) today announced a new mobile app for its PFS Prepaid MasterCard customers enabling users to store and manage their prepaid cards through a mobile digital wallet controlled through a smartphone. The Pocket to Pocket mobile app is initially available for the Apple iOS platform; an Android version […]
July 2, 2013 Patent-holding company Alexsam Inc. has been dealt another court defeat in its series of lawsuits against a group of retailers the company claimed infringed on its prepaid gift card patents. Last Friday, a federal jury in Marshall, Texas, ruled that Gap Inc. did not infringe on the technology covered by the patents—which […]
July 1, 2013 “We’re only at the beginning of a technology-driven revolution in financial services,” Melissa Koide, deputy assistant secretary, office consumer policy, U.S. Treasury Department, said last week during the NBPCA’s second annual Power of Prepaid conference in Washington, D.C. Koide noted that the prepaid platform has brought powerful and positive innovations to financial […]
July 1, 2013 Payments processor TSYS has completed its $1.4 billion acquisition of GPR and payroll card provider NetSpend Corp., the company said today. First announced in February, the deal was billed as a “transformational event” for TSYS, and gives the Columbus, Ga.-based firm a major foothold in the program management arena, bringing more than […]
