Altair Financial Services International has announced that "it will work with MasterCard to deliver the first prepaid card programs in Europe using MasterCard rePower, the MasterCard point-of-sale reload service. The first prepaid programs to benefit from MasterCard rePower loading facility in the UK will be issued by Newcastle Building Society in Spring 2009."   » Continue Reading

The GSMA, the global trade body for the mobile industry, and the European Payments Council, which represents 8,000 banks in the European Union and EEA and Switzerland, have announced they will be working together "to accelerate the deployment of services that enable consumers to pay for goods and services in shops, restaurants and other locations using their mobile phones."   » Continue Reading

Wirecard and Experian have announced "a strategic alliance to create a unique product to provide risk management support to the rapidly growing European Internet payment market. The new product, hosted by Wirecard, gives clients access to sophisticated analytics, modelling and simulation technology at the point at which they make decisions on their customers. Fully integrated into Wirecard’s payment platform, the new service will help clients to increase the speed and quality of their decision-making during order acceptance and reduce their exposure to Internet fraud."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Europe (MCE) has announced that "as of June 21, 2008 MasterCard is temporarily repealing its current MasterCard and Maestro intra-EEA cross-border consumer card interchange fees in conformity with the European Commission's December 19, 2007 decision. MCE said it will continue its dialogue with the Commission services about an interchange fee methodology that the Commission services believe is consistent with the decision. MCE also said it will continue to pursue its appeal of the decision to the European Court of First Instance, which it filed on March 1."   » Continue Reading

On the Digital Money Forum blog, Dave Birch posts about Harry Leinonen's paper titled "Payment Habits and Trends in the Changing E-Landscape 2010+" . From the foreward: "This book is the summary of a project undertaken in the Bank of Finland with the objective of discovering business and technological innovations, with which possibly new payment approaches could be introduced to the market and changes in future payment habits could be brought about. Payments habits have changed slowly in the past and therefore the time period selected for the study is 2010+, ranging to about 5–10 years beyond then. According to the findings we appear to be heading towards a new era in payment technology."   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced that it has signed an agreement with EUFISERV and its fifteen shareholders (including twelve European banks and banking organizations) to expand and develop the European inter-bank processing network managed by EUFISERV. The two companies said that "connecting the existing networks of EUFISERV and First Data will create the opportunity for customers to access more than 74,000 ATMs, 1.5 million POS merchants and to reach more than 165 million debit and credit card accounts in Europe."   » Continue Reading

Six European card payment schemes have joined together to establish the "Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes s.c.r.l. (EAPS)". Based in Brussels, the new company will "facilitate pan-European transactions, effectively creating a new European card scheme, generating more choice in this market. Cardholders will be able to use their cards at more places throughout Europe, while retailers will gain more and better opportunities for card acceptance under the uniform EAPS acceptance mark."   » Continue Reading

Cardholders of European banks will soon be able to use their payment cards for transactions in other European countries just as easily as in their home country according to the new Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS). The executives of several national card payment schemes have agreed on principles of cooperation that will enable the creation of a "new alternative for pan-European payments" that will bring significant additional benefits to banks, retailers and cardholders.   » Continue Reading

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