In a new PaymentsViews.com post, Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton updates her earlier post that described her personal experience trying to use her US-issued mag stripe (non-chip) credit card during a recent visit to the UK.

In an article titled "Annual Fees: Citi Takes Leap" in tomorrow's American Banker, Maria Aspan reports that Citi "has started adding annual fees to some of its existing credit card accounts in one of the first such attempts by a major issuer to offset the effects of the government's crackdown." Many have expected to see a return to annual fees for more accounts as a result of Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act signed into last May.

A new Consumers Union report finds that "prepaid cards come with high fees and don't offer consumers the same kinds of protections as other forms of plastic payment. Prepaid cards are reloadable cards that can be used to make payments similar to debit cards and are becoming the foundation of a second tier banking system used by a growing number of low income consumers." A copy of the report can be found at: http://www.defendyourdollars.org/Prepaid%20WP.pdf. READ MORE »

Chase has announced a new program that gives its checking account customers "more rewards on every purchase when they use their Chase Freedom credit card."

“This is one more way to thank customers for doing more business with Chase,” said Scott Powell, head, Consumer Banking. “That’s especially important as consumers watch every dollar they earn and spend.”

According to Chase, its "Chase Exclusives program rewards Chase checking account customers with better rates, more rewards and bigger discounts on nearly all the financial products offered through Chase’s bank branches." READ MORE »

CashEdge has announced results from its fourth annual Consumer Online Banking Survey saying it "demonstrated an increasing demand for simple, secure person-to-person (P2P) payment services and the preference by consumers to get these services from their financial institution, rather than an independent service such as PayPal. Conducted annually by CashEdge, the study examines the behavior and preferences of more than 850 consumers nationwide aged 18 years and older who use online banking capabilities." READ MORE »

Zoot, a provider of instant credit decisioning and loan origination solutions, has announced the release of a new white paper, “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Serving the Underserved in the United States through Insight into the European Credit Culture.” The paper discusses technology and business strategies credit risk managers and community reinvestment officers should consider when they attempt to reach this overlooked market. READ MORE »

INSIDE Contactless and Cryptography Research have announced an agreement regarding the use of CRI’s patents covering countermeasures to Differential Power Analysis (DPA) and related attacks for INSIDE’s MicroPass and other secure semiconductor products. Under the agreement, INSIDE may use CRI's patents as part of the security strategy for its contactless semiconductor products which are used around the world in a variety of form factors – including contactless cards, key fobs, mobile payment bridge products, and NFC secure elements for mobile phones – for use in applications such as contactless payment, loyalty, identification, transit and access control. READ MORE »

FleetCor has announced that it has acquired the UK and Ireland fuel card businesses of Retail Decisions (ReD). The acquisition includes all of ReD’s fuel card operations in the UK and Ireland, including ReD’s network of UK fuel bunkering outlets. READ MORE »

New research from TowerGroup titled "Shuffling the Cards: The Migration of Frugal Consumers and Cautious Lenders to a Debit Card World" finds that "debit cards are far more resilient in the current recessionary economy than credit cards. In less than 15 years, debit card transactions in the United States grew from 1 percent of noncash transactions to more than 50 percent. TowerGroup predicts that debit card transaction volume and card spend will grow through 2015, through the current recession and ensuing economic recovery." READ MORE »

Elavon, a wholly owned subsidiary of US Bancorp, has signed a three-year agreement with FNC Inc., a technology company offering tailored solutions for the real-estate and mortgage industry to streamline industry processes, regulations and compliance. According to Elevavon, "the agreement provides credit and debit processing services via a new dashboard functionality offered by FNC in support of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) – a regulatory requirement impacting the mortgage industry’s appraiser selection process." READ MORE »

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