New York City is the latest to launch a mobile payment pilot for its municipal parking operations, enabling motorists to use smartphones to locate and pay for available parking spots on streets and city-operated parking lots. The pilot harnesses technology from Vancouver-based PaybyPhone, which provides mobile payment services for parking operations in 180 cities around […]
The global move toward cashless payments for mass transit continued this week, with news out of two major world cities. London soon could be banning cash payments on its iconic buses, according to the BBC, while Beijing’s subway has debuted a new payment system that uses sound waves to enable ticket purchases via smartphone. In […]
A proposed plan by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to check prepaid card balances at the U.S. border to combat money laundering will not significantly help solve illegal cross-border funds transfers, according to a new white paper issued by the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association (NBPCA). Instead, the NBPCA said, the agency […]
Kuwait Airways aims to increase customer loyalty with a new prepaid MasterCard that provides members of its frequent-flier Al Waha Club with rewards for every purchase using the card. The Baitok-Waha Club card, offered in collaboration with a local bank, Kuwait Finance House, enables cardholders to earn two free miles for every domestic purchase and […]
Whether it’s in-store, online or using a mobile device, consumers want a seamless shopping experience, with nearly 90 percent of consumers saying it’s important to them to be able to shop in the way that is most convenient for them, regardless of the sales channel, according to a recent report. More than 80 percent of […]
Trading technology company Fidessa has partnered with Asian brokers CIMB, DBS Vickers, Maybank Kim Eng, OCBC Securities, Philip Securities and UOB Kay Hian as part of a plan to create a one-stop trading service for all ASEAN markets.
Post-trade services company Traiana has opened its Swap Data Repository Service, Harmony TR Connect, for OTC derivatives – providing a tool for market participants to comply with US Dodd-Frank legislation on trade reporting.
Concerned about reports that suggest checking account overdraft fees are on the rise again despite regulatory efforts to curb them, a group of lawmakers led by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) recently re-introduced a bill to further restrict bank overdraft fees and launch an investigation into prepaid card overdraft protection programs. The Overdraft Protection Act […]
Another concern about the U.S. migration to EMV was alleviated last week when MasterCard Worldwide announced a solution for ATM operators facing a liability shift this week for fraudulent transactions at ATMs from Maestro cards issued abroad. MasterCard alone has a global chip liability shift for non-U.S.-issued Maestro cards that goes into effect April 19, […]
China may be one step closer to becoming the one of the largest NFC payments markets. Shanghai-based payment card network China UnionPay (CUP) has tapped tech giant Intel to provide mobile payment services. Under the collaboration, announced last week at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, CUP will use Intel’s identity protection technology for its […]
The M-Pesa mobile money transfer service could be coming to Myanmar, thanks to a joint bid by Vodafone and China Mobile. The companies are among 12 groups being considered by the Myanmar government for one of two licenses to operate a mobile network in the Southeast Asian nation, according to a report in the Financial […]
US banks Heritage Bank and Central Valley Bank have adopted an account processing tool called DNA from financial technology provider Fiserv. Parent company Heritage Financial says the platform’s flexibility will help the banks grow.
UBS has appointed Oliver Bussmann as group chief information officer, replacing Michele Trogni, who is retiring after 25 years at the bank, the last four of which she spend as head of group technology. Bussman will take up the post at the beginning of June.
As Banking 3.0 continues its inexorable rise, banks are increasingly turning to hosted mobile services developed with vendors – but there is still more work to be done before mobile banking becomes mainstream, according to a new report by analyst firm Celent.
By the standards of the rest of the financial services sector, the payments industry has always progressed at a glacial pace. For the past 10 years, the key topic at the long-running International Payments Summit has been the Single Euro Payments Area.
Germany’s Eurex derivatives exchange has posted a series of videos, in which it explores the role of HFT in providing liquidity to its order book.
There were signs of spring Financial service jobs in London showed growth in the first quarter of the year, but March ended with a month-on-month drop.
Senior financial executives have clashed over the extent to which mobile payments technology has failed to reach its potential – and the best way to fix it.
The emergence of alternative payments providers such as PayPal and the growth of mobile payments systems such as M-Pesa should be seen as a major opportunity for banks, not a threat, according to Ron van Wezel, global head of emerging payment streams at Deutsche Bank.
Canadian consumers will be the first in North America to be able to use MasterCard’s new MasterPass digital wallet, the company announced today. Unveiled in February at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, MasterPass offers users a cloud-based mobile solution for online shopping. Consumers can store up to 25 credit, debit or prepaid cards in the wallet—whether […]
Fiserv Inc. this week said it’s launching a new solution to help government agencies cut wasteful spending by improving payment accuracy. Fiserv’s new Payment Accuracy and Fraud Prevention Service, adapting the company’s private-sector fraud-mitigation tools for the public sector, is designed to help federal agencies identify incorrect, redundant and fraudulent payments across diverse channels, the […]
Lower gas prices, an earlier Easter holiday and the arrival of tax refunds, among other factors, likely counteracted any effects of increased payroll taxes as consumer spending was strong in March, according to the latest SpendTrend data released by First Data Corp., an Atlanta-based payments processor. Dollar volume growth increased 6 percent last month year […]
Renewing a push to crack down on “excessive interest rates and fees,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and four other senators this week reintroduced a bill to cap interest rates on all credit transactions at 36 percent. The legislation, also proposed last year, mirrors a similar bill Durbin championed in 2009, that would align interest […]
Global shipments of NFC-enabled SIM cards rose 87 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, according to SIMalliance. The London-based nonprofit trade association, which supports the creation, deployment and management of secure mobile services and applications, this week released a report on 2012 SIM shipments based on data provided by its members, which represent […]
As the February 2014 deadline for implementation of Single Euro Payment Area compatible instruments approaches, focus is moving from banks to corporates – and the increasingly clear picture is that few European corporates see any great benefit from adopting the standards involved.
Payments company Kalixa Group has launched a set of tools including an mPOS, e-wallet and acceptance kit, which it says will disrupt the global payments market in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
Banks should pay attention to the needs of a new generation of consumers if they want to secure their business lines for the future, according to Mark Hale, head of payments at KPMG.
Disruptive digital technologies such as mobile and the internet will destroy the established retail banking business models by removing the physical product and replacing it with a digitised bank account, according to Brett King, speaking at the IPS show in London today. “In the old days there was a physical product, and a physical store,” […]
Banks are not good at communicating industry change to their corporate clients, according to a panel of senior industry representatives speaking at the IPS conference in London today.
Proposed policies intended to promote competion in payments could stifle innovation and standardisation in the payments and transaction banking sectors, according to a partner in a leading law firm. Dermot Turing, partner in the international financial institutions and markets group at Clifford Chance, told delegates at the International Payments Summit in London that moves by […]
PayPal and Discover will begin the rollout of PayPal as a payment option at the point of sale, starting April 19, Don Kingsborough, PayPal’s global vice president and general manager of retail and prepaid, said yesterday. Speaking at Card Forum in Boca Raton, Fla., Kingsborough shared the stage with Discover’s Joe Hurley, senior vice president, […]
Card Forum kicked off its 25th annual conference in Boca Raton yesterday with “Prepaid Day” and not surprisingly, the Fed’s FAQs on Reg. II came up during a session on regulation. The guidance, which came out two weeks before the April 1 compliance deadline for network routing rules, appears to require PINs to be issued […]
Yum! Brands Inc.’s KFC is the latest fast-food giant to pilot a mobile payment app, launching its first such effort near London. Consumers will be able use their smartphones to place orders and pay ahead of time, then pick up their food upon arrival at the store. KFC joins Starbucks Corp., Burger King Corp., Dunkin’ […]
Orange and Vodafone customers now can use their mobile phones to pay for trips on the subway in Bucharest, Romania. The system this month is being expanded to the city’s entire 51-station metro network after testing in seven stations last year. Customers can purchase tickets by sending a text message to a special number. A […]
Students at two colleges have a new way to pay for campus meals, thanks to a pilot being launched by food service manager Chartwells Higher Education Dining Services and mobile payment and loyalty network LevelUp. The program—undergoing a test run at Buffalo State University in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Curry Student Center retail dining venue […]
Credit advisory and investment partnership Venn Partners has launched Venn Risk Analytics, a financial analysis platform that it says will provide an independent and transparent approach to the analysis and valuation of structure finance products.
As tough new rules requiring the collateralisation of OTC derivatives take hold in Europe and the US, Citi has retooled its OpenInvestor investment services to include segregated collateral custody accounts – a move the bank says will help mitigate counterparty risk and improve collateral efficiency.
Swift’s Innotribe project has announced the fifteen semi-finalists for its startup challenge, which aims to help innovative new companies in financial services to get started.
Ahead of its planned IPO, Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. has set a stock price of $20 to $22 per share, numbers that could lead to the prepaid card provider and third-party distributor raising up to $220 million. Grocery chain Safeway Inc., which owns 96 percent of Blackhawk, revealed plans last year to sell a stake […]
Aiming to capitalize on the combined strengths of two of the prepaid industry’s most potent marketing forces, Green Dot Corp. and UniRush LLC today unveiled the RushCard Live Reloadable Prepaid Visa Card, which will be rolling out later this month at thousands of Green Dot retail partner locations. Leveraging the popularity of UniRush LLC co-founder […]
