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Calling it the "first ever prepaid foreign currency card", Travelex has announced it has teamed with MasterCard and West Suburban Bank to create the Cash Passport Card. The new Cash Passport cards are available in Euros and British Pounds with the exchange rate locked in at the time the card is loaded. Travelex says that for the consumer this means they avoid the risk of currency fluctuations. » Continue Reading
Several SEC Form 10-K Annual Report filings have been completed by various payments-related firms over the last few days including: TSYS, American Express, Fiserv, MasterCard Worldwide, Discover Financial Services, and Visa Inc.
Bellco Credit Union has announced that it "is making it easier for members to take care of their banking needs and access Bellco services through their mobile phones with Bellco’s new Mobile Banking. Bellco members can use their Internet-enabled mobile phones or PDAs to visit http://www.bellco.org and check their account balances, view account history, transfer funds between accounts and manage online bill pay." » Continue Reading
The Bank of England has published its fourth Payment Systems Oversight Report 
. "The Oversight Report is an important element of the Bank’s oversight work, increasing transparency about the performance of the systems and acting as a tool to encourage further progress. The report describes the challenges presented to the key UK payment systems over the past year and explains the focus of the Bank's work in this field."
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We have received news of the following recent management changes:
Registration is about to close for a special two-day focus workshop titled "eB2B Payments at the Tipping Point" being held in the San Francisco Bay Area next week on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 4-5. This special workshop is being taught by Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson in partnership with Erin McCune of Forte Financial. The workshop is approved for up to 17 CTP/CCM recertification credits by the Association for Financial Professionals. Please register ASAP if you'd like to attend this new workshop.
Availity, an e-health information exchange, and TRANSFIRST have announced the general availability of the Availity CareCollect solution for all physicians and health care providers nationwide. According to the two companies, the CareCollect solution is being offered through a partnership with TRANSFIRST, and will provide Availity customers fully integrated payment processing capabilities. » Continue Reading
Yodlee has announced that its proprietary DirectPay card payment network now supports over 300 national and regional billers, enabling new revenue generating credit and debit card based electronic bill payments. Yodless says that "the 300 DirectPay billers represent over 40 percent of major U.S. billers by volume and give most consumers the opportunity to pay nearly half of their bills by card each month." » Continue Reading
Wondering whether the cell phone is about to replace the wallet? Will the disappearance of international border constraints from the payments landscape open as many doors to potential risk as it does to business growth opportunities?Financial institutions and businesses can choose from more than 130 sessions addressing these and other key industry issues at NACHA’s annual conference, PAYMENTS 08, May 18–21 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. » Continue Reading
The Airline Payment Summit is being held in Toronto, Ontario on April 9-10, 2008. "As airline yields come under downward pressure, Airline Payment Summit (APS) will examine leading-edge low-cost payment solutions within the landscape of traditional forms of payments such as credit cards."
In an article titled 'Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business', Chris Anderson writes for Wired Magazine about how more and more things are trending toward free. Here's his view about why micropayments failed: 'The huge psychological gap between 'almost zero' and 'zero' is why micropayments failed. It's why Google doesn't show up on your credit card. It's why modern Web companies don't charge their users anything. And it's why Yahoo gives away disk drive space. The question of infinite storage was not if but when. The winners made their stuff free first.'
In an article titled 'Visa IPO success hinges on share price', Sam Zuckerman writes for the San Francisco Chronicle. He writes: 'Visa Inc.'s upcoming initial public offering is shaping up to be this year's hottest ticket on Wall Street. But should individual investors try to crash the party?'
TowerGroup has announced new research titled "Process and Data Risks in a Changing Economy: How Credit Card Issuers Can Protect Their Portfolios" that identifies critical steps credit card issuers can take to withstand the current credit storm, and recover more quickly when the economy normalizes. » Continue Reading
Reuters reports that VisaNet Brasil, owned in part by Visa Inc, is expected to sell shares in an initial public offering later this year.
Deborah Haynes reports for the London Times from Baghdad about prepaid MasterCards being distributed in Iraq by a Baghdad-based financial services company. "The firm has been providing pay-as-you-go MasterCards since 2004, although business started to pick up only over the past year as the country became more secure."
Saar Drimer, Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson, researchers at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge in the UK, have announced a demonstration showing that "Chip & PIN machines are not as secure as the banking industry claims. Two widely deployed models of PIN Entry Devices (PEDs), the Ingenico i3300 and Dione Xtreme, fail to protect customers' card details and PINs adequately." The BBC also reports on this story. » Continue Reading
In an article titled 'Exposing the Credit-Card Fine Print', Anita Hamilton writes for Time about credit card issuer practices regarding interest rate adjustments. Hamllton writes that 'with politicians angry with the bankers over the subprime fiasco, the heat is rising on the industry's credit-card segment.'
On the Credit Slips blog, Adam Levitin examines the legislation recently introduced by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) called the The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights of 2008 (H.R. 5244). Levitin says the proposed legislation "is an important first step to reining in an industry that has run wild in a regulatory no-man’s land of outdated and threadbare federal laws, preempted state laws, and somnolent consumer protection by federal banking regulators. The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights is a major piece of federal consumer protection legislation that will help shield consumers from the worst abuses of the card industry."
Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal about Visa's planned initial public offering - scheduled for the week of March 17. Randall Smith writes for that Wall St. Journal about the fees ($350 million) that Wall St. firms may earn from the Visa IPO. Eric Dash writes about the Visa IPO for the New York Times.
We have received news of the following recent management changes:
Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent of the New York Times, posts about the Visa IPO - asking how much of the Visa IPO proceeds will stay in Visa to help the company grow?
Meta Payments Systems has announced "the iAdvance Line of Credit for the millions of Americans who are unable to access affordable, small dollar credit." » Continue Reading
Bankrate.com has published findings from a national poll of 1,014 consumers that examined attitudes toward consumer debt. Among the findings, "66 percent of Americans say debt is often the result of unfortunate circumstances beyond a person's control, while 60 percent say it is usually the result of bad decisions."
Edgar, Dunn recently commissioned an independent online survey of 700 individuals in the United States who made Internet purchases during the 2007 end-of-year gift shopping season, and the results revealed a significant shift in consumer use of these types of "alternative forms of payment". A new Insight article by Pascal Burg explores some of the implications of this shift to key stakeholders including alternative payment providers, traditional payment providers, merchants, and consumers. Almost a third of survey respondents used PayPal, Bill Me Later or Google Checkout to make an online purchase during the 2007 end-of-year gift shopping season.
In an article titled 'Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web', John Markoff writes for the New York Times about the rich Internet application environment released today by Adobe: Adobe AIR. Adobe's list of showcase AIR applications doesn't yet include any from banks or other financial services companies.
Wells Fargo has announced that it has "extended its Foreign Exchange Online service to small businesses. This service allows businesses to send and receive foreign currency wires in more than 90 currencies using an internet connection." » Continue Reading
Visa Inc. has filed with the SEC Amendment No. 4 to its Form S-1 Registration Statement along with an amended Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2007. The amended S-1 indicates Visa plans to sell up to 46,600,000 shares of Class A common stock at a proposed maximum offering price of $42 per share raising $18.757 billion. Andrew Edwards writes for the Wall St. Journal that Visa's IPO could be the largest in US history.
The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association has published “Recommended Practices for Anti-Money Laundering Compliance for U.S.-based Prepaid Card Programs.” The association says the document will "assist in the industry’s response to reduce the potential for prepaid cards to be used for money laundering, financial crime or other illegal activity such as terrorist financing." » Continue Reading
The Center for American Progress has published a new report titled "House of Cards" by Tim Westrich and Christian E. Weller. From the abstract: "As borrowing in the mortgage market slows, credit card borrowing is accelerating—a dangerous trend because borrowers still face weak income growth. That means the credit card market could eventually run into the same problems that now afflict the subprime mortgage market."
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We have received news of the following recent management changes:
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has announced it will "partner with NJ TRANSIT to undertake an eight-month pilot test that will allow customers to use contactless bank cards, key fobs, cell phones and other devices to pay for transit. The test will help determine if customers could ultimately use these devices to pay fares on all of the region's transit systems, including New York City's subways and buses." Contactless payment will be available exclusively to MasterCard PayPass customers during the initial two months of the test and to other bank-issued contactless card customers for the balance of the test period. » Continue Reading
The Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released a new discussion paper titled "Alternative Data and Its Use in Credit Scoring Thin- and No-File Consumers" .
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The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has announced it will host its eighth payments conference, Payments Fraud: Perception versus Reality, June 5–6, 2008 at the Chicago Fed. The conference will highlight threats to the security of the payments system and explore solutions to those challenges.
Amazon.com has launched a new feature allowing international customers to pay for their purchases in the currency of their payment card, instead of U.S. dollars. Amazon says its new Amazon Currency Converter allows international customers to purchase eligible items with greater ease and certainty. » Continue Reading
NetSpend and Advance America have announced an agreement "that makes prepaid, reloadable debit cards and gift cards available at just over 2,600 Cash Advance Centers across 35 states. Advance America, the country's leading provider of payday cash advance services, now makes prepaid cards a key component of its current suite of services in the United States." » Continue Reading
JCB and CASSIS International have announced an agreement to collaborate in a test of NFC over-the-air (OTA) services. The two companies will jointly demonstrate end-to-end secure contactless payment issuance services for NFC mobile phones. » Continue Reading
The American Banker reports this morning about legislation being drafted in the US Congress that would "amend the antitrust laws to ensure competitive market-based rates and terms for merchants' access to electronic payment systems."
M. E. Kabay writes for Network World about his proposal for using the cardholder name field in card authorization messages to transport one-time codes.
In an article titled 'The Hands-Free Way to Steal a Credit Card', Robert Vamosi writes for CNET.com about a demonstration given yesterday in which 'Adam Laurie, a RFID security expert, demoed a new Python script he's working on to read the contents of a Smart chip-enabled credit card.'
Capital One has announced the Preferred No Hassles Miles card, a card that it says "offers small business owners double rewards for travel and entertainment purchases." » Continue Reading
Ronald J. Mann, professor of law at Columbia Law School, has put together an interesting graphic published in the latest issue of Foreign Policy magazine about the growth in credit card usage in countries around the world. Mann is also the author of Charging Ahead, a book on the credit card industry published in 2006.
MasterCard has filed its Form 10-K Annual Report with the SEC. On pages 24-25 of the 10-K, MasterCard notes that "interchange fees are subject to increasingly intense legal and regulatory scrutiny worldwide, which may have a material adverse impact on our revenue, our prospects for future growth and our overall business." MasterCard notes that "on January 31, 2008, the Hungarian Competition Authority commenced a formal investigation of MasterCard Europe’s domestic interchange fees in Hungary."
Experian( has announced it has filed a lawsuit against LifeLock, Inc. "for allegedly placing fraud alerts illegally on credit files maintained by Experian." » Continue Reading
Accertify has announced that Southwest Airlines has selected its Interceptas solution to fight credit card fraud. » Continue Reading
U.S. Bank and Visa Inc. have announced that they have signed a multiyear partnership agreement through which U.S. Bank will continue to offer the full range of Visa payment platforms to its consumer and business customers. » Continue Reading
TrialPay has announced that is has closed a $12.7 millionSeries B round of financing - bringing the total amount raised to $15.8 million. The company also announced that it now has 5.2 million registered users - with over 15,000 new users joining TrialPay daily. » Continue Reading
MasterCard Advisors, the professional services arm of MasterCard Worldwide, has introduced The Small Business Study, an in-depth report of cardholders’ spending, attitudes, and preferences across the leading small business card issuers. » Continue Reading
We have received news of the following recent management changes:
The Members Group has released a white paper for credit unions considering adding gift card as a product. The paper steps through the advantages of an effective program.
In an article titled 'Villagers across 12 states to benefit from mobile banking', Leslie D`Monte writes for India's Business Standard about mobile banking and how government is helping increase adoption.
In its latest Letter to Stakeholders, the FDIC notes that "FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions reported net income of $28.7 billion in the third quarter of 2007, a decline of $9.4 billion (24.7 percent) from the third quarter of 2006. The year-over-year decline is primarily attributable to increases in provisions for loan losses and a decline in non-interest income."
This Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area, we'll be hosting a special focus workshop on Card Payment Processing - The Value Chain. If you're interested in some current insights into the merchant card processing side of the business, be sure to take a look at the recent conference call transcripts on quarterly earnings from both Global Payments and Heartland Payment Systems. Thanks to Seeking Alpha for making the transcripts available.
In an article titled 'Money is going mobile through phone services', Cassell Bryan-Lowe reports for the Wall St. Journal about Safaricom, a joint venture between Vodafone and Telkom Kenya, that provides person-to-person remittance services in Kenya. According to the article, Vodafone is planning to add India as well as cross-border remittance services between Kenya and the UK.
Dynamic Card Solutions has introduced contactless card personalization - "allowing financial institutions to maintain the customer and revenue benefits of instant issuance while capitalizing on one of the card industry’s new growth opportunities." » Continue Reading
Viewpointe has announced that Fifth Third Bank will begin using Viewpointe's Pointe2Pointe solution for check image exchange. » Continue Reading
The fourth quarter report from the University of Michigan on its American Customer Satisfaction Index is out and reports that "banks climb 1.3 percent to 78, lead by improvements in the “all others” category, up 3 percent to lead the industry with a score of 80. Wachovia, down 1 percent to 79, is still the top scoring bank, despite its first drop since 2000. JPMorgan Chase climbs 3 percent to 74, and Bank of America is unchanged at 72. Wells Fargo and Citigroup each drop 4 percent to 69, the lowest scores in the industry."
Ross Kerber writes for the Boston Globe that "last year the number of ATMs in the United States fell 9 percent, the first big drop since the devices were introduced in the 1970s."
Aite Group has announced a new report titled "Card Networks' Rebates and Incentives" that "addresses the strategic implications of card networks' rebates and incentives for industry stakeholders, including details concerning networks themselves, issuers, merchants, acquirers and regulators." » Continue Reading
RentPayment has announced the implementation of Cardinal MAX, the mobile platform from CardinalCommerce Corporation, to allow residents to make payments via their mobile phones. » Continue Reading
A special issue of the First Annapolis Navigator devoted to sub-prime lending issues is now available. This issue contains a main article highlighting the fallout in the mortgage sector and the spill-over into credit cards plus two additional articles: Prospect Marketing in a Risky Environment and Improving Collections to Defend Against the Credit Crunch. You must register with First Annapolis to request the Navigator.
In an article titled 'A Referral Service That Ensures Someone Actually Makes a Sale', Bob Tedeschi writes for the New York Times about TrialPay's 'new marketing method that relies on a web of business relationships to give consumers free goods, as long as they buy something else from a long list of well-known online stores.' [Note: Glenbrook recently published a briefing about TrialPay.]
Barron's cover story this weekend by Mark Veverka is all about Well Fargo. "Unlike most of its peers that have been badly dinged, the San Francisco-based bank doesn't have a big capital-markets operation exposed to credit derivatives, structured-investment vehicles, or mortgage-backed securities. It isn't slowed by a huge book of subprime residential-mortgage loans, and its balance sheet can withstand more bullets than most."
From an article by TowerGroup's Charul Vyas in RCR Wireless News: "Mention mobile commerce in North America, and the common response is a roll of the eyes. It’s not hard to guess why. Back in the heady days of the Internet dot-com bubble, mobile commerce was one of the many buzz words connected with e-commerce whose promise failed to materialize because the hype was premature. Today’s landscape is much different."
mFoundry has just published a new whitepaper on mobile security . "What should financial institutions know about mobile security? What are the risks? What are the minimum safeguard requirements and what can FI's do to ensure that mobile banking efforts are as secure as other channels?"
The latest issue of Dove Consulting's On Payments newletter is now available. Articles include "Migrating Small Business Invoice Payments from Paper to Plastic" and "Implications of the 2007 Federal Reserve Payments Study Results" .
Visa Inc. has filed with the SEC Amendment No. 3 to its Form S-1 Registration Statement along with an amended Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2007.
mChek, an Indian company focused on mobile security and payments services, has announced that its mChek on Airtel postpaid bill payment service has won the GSMA Global Mobile Award 2008 for Best Billing and Customer Care Solution with Airtel at the 13 th Annual GSM Association Global Mobile Awards 2008 at Barcelona. » Continue Reading
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a new report on online shopping - finding that Internet users like the convenience but worry about the security of their financial information. "Most online Americans view online shopping as a way to save time and a convenient way to buy products. At the same time, most internet users express discomfort over a key step in online shopping -- sending personal or credit card information over the internet."
Glenbrook's Payments Boot Camp next week (Tuesday-Wednesday) in Santa Clara, California is almost sold out. If you're interested in attending, please register right away! Our Payments Boot Camps provide a "deep dive" on U.S. payments systems - covering soup-to-nuts, basics through emerging payments. After Santa Clara next week, our next Payments Book Camp will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 18th and 19th.
MasterCard Worldwide has announced a new Priceless advertising campaign, "Priceless Search," that it says "will instantly award consumers who find winning envelopes in select Condé Nast publications and Sotheby's Preview magazine with one of three, exceptional and one-of-a-kind experiences." » Continue Reading
Abhineet Kumar reports from Mumbai for livemint.com on the evolution of mobile banking and payments in India - including the regulatory oversight of that evolution. "Californian mobile payment service provider Obopay Inc. and Bangalore’s mChek India Payment Systems Pvt. Ltd are among a fast-expanding breed of mobile payment service providers which have planned offerings that work within the guidelines and bring the convenience of mobile transactions."
99Bill Corporation, a third-party electronic payment services provider in China, has launched one-stop cross-bank services for credit card bill payment targeting 75 millions credit card holders in China. » Continue Reading
TSYS and UK-based Telrock have announced they are "jointly developing a suite of integrated mobile solutions for TSYS’ North American clients. Telrock has been providing mobile solutions for TSYS’ European card processing clients for more than one year. The decision to extend the relationship to North America is based on the success of the European relationship and an increased interest in mobile account servicing and payment solutions in the North American card market." » Continue Reading
Jeffrey Birnbaum writes for the Washington Post about legislation that is pending in the US Senate that would "prevent a small Texas company called DataTreasury from collecting damages from banks for infringing on its patented method for digitally scanning, sending and archiving checks."