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Ron Lieber and Jessica Mintz report for the Wall St. Journal's Saturday edition about paying convenience fees to pay your taxes and why they're not always a rip-off - but only if your card issuer is offering bonuses for tax payments.
PAYMENTS 2006, NACHA's annual conference on electronic payments, will be held this year in San Diego, California from May 7-10 at the San Diego Convention Center.
As a Payments News reader, you can attend this year's conference at the Member's registration price, $200 less than Non-Member registration. To get your discount, register as a member, select Other as your ACH Council affiliation and key in "Payments News subscriber".
Reuters reports on what a number of US bank CEO's made in terms of compensation last year.
The Weekend Australian reports on plans by the standing committee on economics, finance and public administration of the Australian parliament to review reforms made by the Reserve Bank of Australia to the country's payments system - including changes to card interchange fees. » Continue Reading
Federal regulators have announced the release of Evolution of a Prototype Financial Privacy Notice, a report by Kleimann Communication Group summarizing consumer research commissioned by the regulators as part of their ongoing efforts to develop improved financial privacy notices. » Continue Reading
National City has announced a new points-based rewards program that "rewards consumer and small business customers with points for everyday transactions, like making purchases with debit and credit cards, paying bills online, writing checks – even improving a home or small business through purchases with a home equity or small business line of credit access card." » Continue Reading
David Lazarus reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on the elimination of some benefits previously included on Visa debit cards. The banks he mentions planning to eliminate some of the existing debit card benefits include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Wachovia. » Continue Reading
Bruce Erskine reports for the Halifax, Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald on Visa's migration to smart cards in Canada. » Continue Reading
Robert Lemos reports for SecurityFocus.com on the Secret Service's Operation Rolling Stone that has recently made seven additional arrests related to the earlier debit card fraud incidents.
NACHA has announced a new web site - www.electronicpayments.org - designed to be a resource for NACHA members to use to educate and inform consumers about Direct Deposit, Direct Payment and Check Conversion - ACH applications that NACHA says "provide safe and secure consumer payments, improve business and financial institution process and profitability, and strengthen our nation's payment system."
OCC Chief Counsel Julie Williams has spoken out in a speech delivered today to the 2006 Banking Institute (PDF) on her views regarding the current state of financial industry consumer disclosures. » Continue Reading
TransUnion has announced it will be integrating the ID Analytics ID Score into its Fraud and Identity Management Services. » Continue Reading
Click here for Glenbrook's analysis:
"Obopay Mobile Payments - A First Look"
containing more analysis and details on Obopay.
Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report examining the debit card reward programs titled "Setting Goals For Debit Reward Programs: Balancing Revenue Goals and Brand Loyalty". » Continue Reading
Lara Wozniak writes for FinanceAsia.com about a significant increase in charge off rates on credit cards issued in Taiwan. » Continue Reading
Jeremy Reimer writes for ArsTechnica about the kinds of rewards credit cards that online gamers want to use - where the rewards associated with the cards extend into the virtual worlds of their favorite online games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life.
The Winston-Salem Journal carries an AP story about card acceptance is rapidly increasing among landlords who are enabling their renters to pay monthly rent via credit and debit cards. » Continue Reading
Kristin Roberts reports for Reuters that Wal-Mart has offered to modify its pending application with the FDIC for a limited purpose bank.
Earlier today, Citibank launched Citibank Direct, a new high yield savings account product.
One of our partners just opened the new Citibank e-savings account -- an interesting and rather positive experience. Read on for details. » Continue Reading
Stored Value Systems has announced the results of a national web survey of adults conducted at the end of February revealed that eight in 10 said they would rather receive a gift card to their favorite retailer than any other kind of gift. » Continue Reading
I4 Commerce, the company offering the Bill Me Later payment service, has announced it has secured $27.4 million in venture funding led by Kingdon Capital Management and including previous major investors, Crosspoint Venture Partners, Azure Capital Partners and GRP Partners. » Continue Reading
Clint Riley reports for the Wall St. Journal on Citibank's launch of a new high yield savings account program competitive with similar accounts offered by ING Direct, HSBC, and Emigrant Savings. Citi's approach, however, also requires consumers to maintain a Citibank checking account. The new e-Savings account is offered on a new website at direct.citibank.com. » Continue Reading
The Gulf Marketing Review interviews John Stuart, MasterCard's senior vice president for global sponsorships. » Continue Reading
CardRatings.com is urging consumers burdened with high levels of credit card debt to consider using a technique often suggested with mortgages - make payments twice as often and you'll significantly affect the total amount of interest you pay for a given amount of debt. » Continue Reading
NACHA has announced Authentication Mandate: Compliance Issues & Revenue Opportunities for Online Banking, a conference focusing on the business opportunities resulting from financial institutions' online authentication capabilities and the recent Federal regulatory guidance on authentication in Internet banking. » Continue Reading
Matthew Charles reports for Australia's Herald Sun on the new Altitude Platinum rewards card program launched by Westpac that actually issues each consumer two cards - a co-branded American Express card and a Westpac MasterCard. » Continue Reading
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has published a staff paper titled “The Topology of Interbank Payment Flows,” (PDF) by Kimmo Soramäki, Morten L. Bech, Jeffrey Arnold, Robert J. Glass, and Walter E. Beyeler. » Continue Reading
Michael Jivkov writes for the UK's Independent about yesterday's financial results reported by Neteller and asks the question "is there no end in sight to the company's growth?" » Continue Reading
Andrea Coombes reports for MarketWatch on the ABA's report yesterday that the percentage of credit-card accounts that were 30 days or more delinquent fell to 4.27% in the fourth quarter, from 4.74% in the third quarter and down from a record high of 4.81% in the second quarter of 2005. » Continue Reading
Bridie Smith reports for The Age from Melbourne on plans by retailers to stop providing cash back on retail EFTPOS transactions if the Reserve Bank of Australia cuts the interchange fees paid TO retailers. The EFTPOS system in Australia has a "reverse interchange" scheme similar to that used with ATM networks - where the card issuing bank pays the retailer for serving their card customer.
Visa International, Latin American and Caribbean Region (LAC) has announced a 50 percent increase in purchases made with debit and prepaid cards at the point-of-sale (POS) for the 12 months ending December 2005. » Continue Reading
In a comprehensive report that, in our opinion, is a "must read" for senior bankers interested in important emerging competitive trends, the latest issue of the Online Banking Report examines in detail the person-to-person lending business being pursued by Prosper.com and Zopa. » Continue Reading
Bradley Keoun reports for Bloomberg News on First Data CEO Ric Duques' compensation for 2005 reported as $16.4 million in a proxy statement filed with the SEC yesterday by FDC. » Continue Reading
Alex Halperin writes for Business Week about using biometrics for payments and San Francisco-based Pay By Touch who now reports having enrolled 2 million people in its fingerprint biometric payment system. » Continue Reading
NTT DoCoMo and LAWSON, Inc. have announced a business alliance that will result in customers using DoCoMo's Osaifu-Keitai phones with wallet functions for a variety of mobile services at LAWSON convenience stores in Japan. » Continue Reading
Zopa has announced a $15 million Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and including existing investors Benchmark Capital and Wellington Partners. The additional funding will support Zopa's intended California launch. » Continue Reading
Phillip Torrone of Make Magazine writes about what he'd like to see in the next generation of credit cards where "credit card companies and game makers will reward their customers who spend money in the real world using private label "rewards" credit cards." According to Torrone, they will use "gifts of virtual currency such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft gold and Second Life's Linden dollars."
Martyn Williams reports for InfoWorld that Aeon Co., one of Japan's biggest retail groups, is "throwing its weight behind NTT DoCoMo's plans to enable touch-and-go credit card payments through cell phone handsets." » Continue Reading
Almost one-half of all U.S. adults (45%) say their household does not have enough money in liquid savings to cover at least three months of living expenses, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com. » Continue Reading
Declan McCullagh of CNET News.com interviews Ed Mierzwinski, the consumer program director for the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG), about a new data security breach bill that is moving its way through Congress and would pre-empt various state laws on the subject including California's SB1386 consumer notification provisions.
Larry Greenemeier reports for Information Week on Visa's contactless card efforts including the potential that contactless technology could be used to better secure cards. » Continue Reading
It's Springtime and there's PayPal in the Air! PayPal Mobile that is.
Last week, the world learned a bit more about PayPal's next steps in mobile payments and mobile commerce. This weekend, we've taken a deeper look at PayPal's move into mobile payments. We invite you to add your own comments as well - either by choosing to comment on the post directly or by simply sending us an email with your thoughts and telling us it's OK to share (to send us an email, just click on the Feedback link at the bottom of any page).
» Continue ReadingBusiness Week this week takes a look at two subjects critically important to retail banking these days - rewards and the analytics that look at customer behavior to figure out how best to target products (and rewards) to consumers to maximize their uptake and minimize any potential that they'll churn out the door to a competitor. » Continue Reading
Here are some highlights from the recent Payments News Reader Survey. » Continue Reading
Binyamin Appelbaum reports for the Charlotte Observer on the important difference and associated implications between debit cards and credit cards when it comes to so-called zero liability policies: "When someone steals a credit card, they are spending the bank's money. When someone steals a debit card, they are spending your money." » Continue Reading
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on ANZ's launch of the ANZ Everyday Visa Debit card, the first debit card issued by any of the big four banks in Australia.
Interestingly, ANZ is charging A$6 per month for the new debit card. Click here to see ANZ's web page on the card.
In an article titled 'The Credit-Card Catapault", Wall St. Journal writer Jane Kim reports on credit card issuers shifting larger portions of their portfolios from fixed to variable interest rates.
American Express has published its 2005 Annual Report (PDF) and its 10-K for 2005 (PDF). In his letter to shareholders in the Annual Report, Chairman and CEO Ken Chenault addressed the perception that the market for cards in the US is fully mature. » Continue Reading
To better understand how eCommerce merchants are responding to the chargeback challenge, Glenbrook recently undertook a comprehensive study of its eCommerce clients to determine the true cost of payment card chargebacks. » Continue Reading
As a follow-up to last week's NACHA announcement, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson spoke with Samantha Carrier, NACHA's project manager on the ACH "Credit Push" initiative. » Continue Reading
American taxpayers are still hesitant to embrace the option to pay their taxes with credit cards, according to a study of 1,001 American adults conducted by global market research firm Ipsos Insight. » Continue Reading
One of the new items in MasterCard's updated S-1 Registration Statement filed yesterday with the SEC is a new disclosure (on page 94 of the new filing) of litigation underway between MasterCard and PrivaSys, Inc. involving alleged misappropriation of PrivaSys trade secrets by MasterCard and related issues involving MasterCard's PayPass product. MasterCard has countersued and filed additional counterclaims. Hosie McArthur LLP (representing PrivaSys) has a brief description of the litigation on their web site.
Bloomberg reports on cuts in bank card interchange fees recently agreed by Mexican banks, bowing to pressure from the central bank. » Continue Reading
MasterCard has announced its spring debit promotion entitled the "MasterCard Monthly Bonus Sweepstakes" "Targeting women, this promotion offers MasterCard debit cardholders in the U.S. the chance to win a $1,000 monthly bonus over the course of 10 years." » Continue Reading
MasterCard has updated its S-1 Registration Statement with the SEC. Today's filing is the third amendment to the initial filing made last September. Earlier, MasterCard had indicated that it expected its initial public offering to be completed in the second quarter of 2006.
EUFISERV has announced that its board of directors has taken decisions necessary for the EUFISERV ATM card scheme to become compliant with the SEPA Cards Framework (SCF). This will allow the scheme to continue to be a part of the European payment system landscape after the launch of SEPA in 2008. » Continue Reading
HSBC's Global Transaction Banking Services has announced it will provide clients a centralized-secure payment service across Canada, the United States and Mexico. The payment service is geared toward clients that need to make payments to trading partners within North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries. » Continue Reading
Entrust has announced filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Palo Alto-based Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union related to an authentication solution for the credit union is using with its customers which Entrust considers an infringement on its grid authentication patent. » Continue Reading
Edward Epstein reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on legislation pending in the House that would mandate certain uniform national standards for consumer notifications in the event of breaches of personal financial data, thereby pre-empting various state laws that are in effect dealing with notification requirements. » Continue Reading
Bob Sulllivan reports for MSNBC.com that "U.S. retailers are being warned that software they use at checkout counters may store too much customer information — including customer debit card PIN numbers that are supposed to be immediately erased or encrypted."
Nicolas Parasie writes for the Dow Jones Newswires about plans by ING Direct to expand its presence in the US market and potentially offer "e-orange", a checking account without paper checks.
Click here for the article "PayPal in the Air" containing more analysis and details on PayPal Mobile.
Guy Brighton has posted an item to the blog PSFK.com reporting that PayPal has soft launched a new PayPal Mobile offering. MobileTracker.com has more about PayPal Mobile including activation instructions. PayPal has posted a new user agreement/policy for mobile payments. » Continue Reading
In a cover story in the latest issue, Fortune senior writer Shawn Tully looks behind the scenes at JP Morgan Chase's new CEO, Jamie Dimon. » Continue Reading
Peppercoin has announced the demonstration of a prototype of a first-of-its-kind contactless mass transit fare collection system that enables consumers to use their existing credit or debit card as their transit pass for the first time. » Continue Reading
The federal financial institution regulatory agencies and the Federal Trade Commission have jointly issued for comment an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on section 312 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act). » Continue Reading
First Data Corp. has announced an affiliation with Retail Decisions to provide an enhanced fraud detection solution for First Data's global online merchants. » Continue Reading
OPEN from American Express and Sovereign Bank have announced that Sovereign will offer American Express Business Cards to its small business customers throughout the Northeast. The agreement calls for the companies to jointly market small business charge and credit cards that carry the Sovereign Bank and American Express brands. » Continue Reading
Beginning April 1, 2006, Bank of America customers traveling to China will have free access when using debit or ATM cards to withdraw cash from more than 11,000 foreign-enabled China Construction Bank ATMs. CCB's "Happy Investor" cardholders will enjoy the same benefit when using one of nearly 17,000 Bank of America ATMs in the United States. » Continue Reading
Tracy Kitten writes for ATMmarketplace.com about last weeks annual Palm Desert National Bank partner conference and some of the initiatives - like prepaid debit - that the bank is pursuing. » Continue Reading
IndexCreditCards.com has announced the results of recent research into the extra fees cardholders can expect to pay major US credit card issuers when using their cards overseas. » Continue Reading
Susan Chandler reports for the Chicago Tribune on what happened at Sears back in 2002 when CEO Alan Lacy walked in and fired Sears Credit head Kevin Keleghan. At the time, Sears Credit contributed about 10 percent of Sears' revenue but provided the majority of its operating profit. "Sears was really a finance company with a retail empire attached."
