As more aspects of life leave the physical world and enter the digital one, the majority of U.K. consumers still prefer buying and giving physical gift cards, rather than buying and sending them electronically, according to a recent survey by global gift card provider and program manager Stored Value Solutions (SVS).
Ingo Money, known for its mobile check deposit capture technology and Good Funds Network, is planning to acquire Fuze Network, a payments technology company that enables loads to more than 1 billion bank-issued cards at thousands of retail locations.
Currency site XE.com and money transfer business Currency Cloud plan to launch a new international payments service called XE Money Transfers before the end of this year, which they claim will make foreign exchange transactions more transparent.
Yesterday the CFPB posted on its Website the announcement of its next field hearing, 11 a.m. EST, Thursday, Nov. 13, in Wilmington, Del.
It’s been a rough week for Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), the retailer-led mobile payments consortium.
While more than a quarter of American households still were either unbanked or underbanked last year, as was the case in 2011, the proportion of unbanked households declined to 7.7 percent or 9.6 million households, compared with 8.2 percent in 2011, according to the latest report from the FDIC.
Ubiquity Global Services, a New York-based financial services and payments service company, will be the sole provider of dispute and chargeback services to UniRush LLC.
The hypothesis that seems to be gaining ground is that banks have a wider responsibility in society. If we believe that, then part of their responsibility must clearly be to provide banking products and services that serve the financial needs of the less affulent.
1to1 Card, a Chicago-based prepaid card program manager, announced that Paul Boemer has joined the company as chief strategy officer.
Bitcoin payment processor BitPay and Bitcoin exchange Vaurum announced that Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will serve as adviser to both enterprises.
CardCash.com, a Brick, N.J.-based marketplace for secondary gift cards, has hired Tom Ochoa as senior vice president of business development.
MasterCard has appointed Safdar Khan to lead its growing Islamic payments business in Southeast Asia, and he will be promoted to the role of group country manager for Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
Meta Financial Group Inc. announced that Elizabeth G. “Betty” Hoople has joined the company’s board of directors.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has hired Marion King as director of payments. She will begin her role with the Edinburgh-based company in early 2015.
Skrill Group, provider of online payment technologies to merchants and consumers, has announced that David Sear will become CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2015.
TMG Financial Services, a Des Moines, Iowa-based payments solutions provider, has announced the promotion of one employee and the addition of two others to the team.
Those of us immersed in payments may have a unique perspective on Apple Pay, but what about other folks? I asked one self-proclaimed Apple “fan boy” to give the mobile wallet a test drive.
Giving consumers what they really need and want from mobile payments will require making payments as invisible as possible.
India is on the brink of a huge economic transformation and making money digital is a crucial part of the solution.
MCX sets the record straight on CurrentC, including exclusivity and data security, following Rite Aid-CVS/pharmacy showdown with Apple Pay.
Banks in fast growing and rapidly developing markets have greater ambition to innovate and invest more in research and development on customer experience than those in mature markets, though all are increasing their investments.
More than 1 million credit cards were activated within the first three days of the Apply Pay mobile wallet’s Oct. 20 debut, Apple CEO Tim Cook told attendees at the WSJD Live Global Technology Conference this week.
Retail holiday spending in the U.S. is expected to jump 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion in 2014, marking the first increase of more than 4 percent since 2011.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week signed a law giving Visa and MasterCard a five-month reprieve from paying a huge security deposit for operating in Russia, according to The Moscow Times.
MasterCard was one of several investors to lead a round of Series B funding that brought in $185 million for Mozido LLC, a startup that focuses on cloud-based, white-label mobile payments services for banks and merchants.
Consumers who want to use Apple Pay at the POS may be a little confused as two large pharmacy chains reportedly accepted some initial payments with the mobile wallet that went live last week, but no longer are.
Blackhawk Network and Green Dot Corp. recently have completed their acquisitions of Parago Inc. and Santa Barbara Tax Products Group (TPG), respectively.
FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion will meet this week to discuss the results of the 2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.
Several Paybefore Award-winning companies also were recent recipients of accolades at the Emerging Payments Awards held in London last week.
Carsten Kengeter has been named as the successor to Reto Francioni, who is stepping down as chief executive of Deutsche Börse after newaly 10 years. Kengeter will take over after the exchange group’s Annual General Meeting on 13 May 2015.
Greater information sharing and closer collaboration between the public and private sectors are needed to combat cyber-attacks, which are now the principal concern of the financial services industry, according to the DTCC. A top priority should be the creation of global industry working groups to engage with national regulators on the development of cyber-security regulations that address the real-time and evolving nature of cyber-threats.
In the rush towards digital banking, are banks in danger of abandoning one of their best ways to engage with customers – their branches?
As GPR cards go mainstream for certain consumer sectors, banks that bring GPR cards to the forefront of their branch marketing efforts are seeing positive results, according to Cecilia Frew, Visa’s head of U.S. prepaid products.
David Nelms, CEO at Discover Financial Services, kept his cards close to the vest about the payments network’s involvement with the recently launched Apple Pay—but Discover’s participation does seem likely, based on his comments during a Q&A with investors on this week’s earnings call.
Finding ways to use GPR prepaid card usage data as a tool to help thin- and no-file consumers build credit has been an enticing yet elusive goal for the industry for years.
Following a live pilot with Norway’s Sparebanken, MasterCard has confirmed a partnership with Zwipe to launch a contactless payment card featuring an integrated fingerprint sensor.
InComm is helping retailers fight several prevalent forms of prepaid card fraud by explaining what to look for and how to fight it.
The regulatory spotlight is shining on high frequency traders and dark pools, but the technological changes that have driven down trading costs for everyone will not be reversed. With market making increasingly the preserve of profit maximising algorithmic traders, there is a growing responsibility on institutions to control where their trades are going and how they are being executed. Those that do not are writing checks to HFTs with clients’ money
In light of the intense regulatory focus and pressure on prepaid cards, it’s time for program managers to step up and manage their own compliance to the point of being “exam-ready.”
Retailers and financial institutions struggle with costs of data breaches.
