Bitcoin is more traceable but less regulated, less expensive but more volatile, and more decentralised but less accountable, than a regular currency. Feeling confused? That’s not the half of it, according to Ernst & Young.
Gift cards will rule again as consumers’ top holiday gift choice in 2013, and a shortened holiday shopping season could benefit increasingly popular e-gift cards.
With no fewer than 70,000 pages of regulation, and some record fines, 2013 will be a year to remember (or possibly to forget) for many financial services professionals
Allied Payment Network, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based provider of online bill payment services to the financial industry, has hired two industry veterans to join the company’s executive team.
3PEA International Inc., a Henderson, Nev.-based prepaid processor and program manager, has hired Ruben Corona as vice president of sales and strategy.
Littleton, Colo.-based card producer CPI Card Group has received a Center of Excellence award by the Smart Card Alliance.
Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based financial services technology provider, recently announced that its Popmoney P2P payments service has taken top honors at the Mobile Money Global Awards and the Mobile Excellence Awards.
Meta Financial Group Inc. (MFG), the holding company of MetaBank, has announced the addition of Douglas J. Hajek to its board of directors, and the retirement of E. Thurman Gaskill.
Paul Hastings LLP has placed second this year among the top 40 most innovative law firms in the Financial Times’ “U.S. Innovative Lawyers” report.
Planet Payment Inc., a Long Beach, N.Y.-based payments processor, has appointed Carl J. Williams president.
International nonprofit trade association Prepaid International Forum (PIF) announced that Dr. Saleh I. Al-Furaih, head of consumer asset business at Al Rajhi Bank, has been appointed chairman of PIF’s Middle East chapter.
The Members Group, a Des Moines, Iowa-based card processing and payment solutions provider, announced that Chris Harvey, executive assistant to the TMG CEO, has been named vice president of the Des Moines, Iowa, chapter of the Executive Women International board of directors.
TSYS, a Columbus, Ga.-based processor, has announced the promotion of Andrew Mathieson to group executive of relationship management.
Virtual Piggy Inc., a Hermosa Beach, Calif.-based provider of e-commerce solutions enabling children to manage and spend money within a parent-controlled environment, has appointed Sébastien Motte to lead business development in the gaming sector for the company.
Visa Inc. has appointed Rajat Taneja executive vice president of technology.
YapStone, a Walnut Creek, Calif.-based provider of Web and mobile payment solutions, recently announced several high-level appointments.
PayPal is bullish on Bitcoin, negative on NFC and ready to begin a major marketing push of the company’s buildup of mobile payment technology at the POS, according to David Marcus, PayPal president.
Clinkle Corp., the darling of investors and the media in recent months, appears to have hit some potholes on the road to launching a payment app that reportedly enables users to transfer funds between individuals and groups, and emphasizes social media.
Digital gift card provider Kiind has found a way to make hay from the fact that about 10 percent of gift cards go unredeemed.
Mobile carrier billing company Fortumo today is launching mobile operator billing in Indonesia, the fourth-largest country in the world by population.
According to Manpower, one of the largest personnel firms worldwide, job prospects in the UK finance sector “look strong heading into 2014 with a Net Employment Outlook of +10%”.
Basel III has transformed liquidity risk management departments into glorified regulatory functions, according to a new report by analyst firm Celent. As if this good news was not enough to be getting on with, the research house also inevitably concludes that banks will have to change their risk data, models, appetite, organisational and analytics frameworks too.
The data management aspects of compliance can run into tens of thousands of man-hours per institution, each year. Firms have to adapt and find new techniques to manage this increasing burden.
Wrapping up all of the reference data a large global bank needs and making sure it is standardised, automated and ready for the regulator is a big task. Japanese bank Mizuho International has just installed an EDM service from vendor Golden Source, which it says will help to support trading and satisfy the regulator.
Surveys suggest that U.S. and U.K. consumers don’t know much about NFC and don’t care.
The retailer-led mobile payment consortium Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) today announced ExxonMobil has joined its ranks, along with Rite Aid Corp., supermarket chain Giant Eagle and the convenience store chain Kum & Go.
Last week was a busy one for the payday loan industry. On Tuesday, New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) sent subpoenas to 16 online “lead generation” firms suspected of deceptive or misleading marketing of illegal, online payday loans in New York. On Wednesday, two new reports were released examining small-dollar lending.
Year-over-year retail sales have been brisk between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday in the U.S. and Canada, according to payment processors First Data Corp. and Moneris Solutions Corp.
The Federal Reserve has issued guidance on managing outsourcing risk to assist financial institutions with understanding and managing the risks associated with outsourcing bank activity to a service provider.
Smaller regional banks may want a single-dealer FX platform; unfortunately, they’re not cheap, so UK technology company Caplin Systems is targeting regional banks that want a single-dealer FX platform without building it themselves.
Financial crime specialist Fiserv has just launched its Financial Crime Risk Management platform, which aims to help financial institutions to ward off financial crime and slash their risk.
The Banking Industry Architecture Network has gained its first member in the Middle East with the addition of Commercial Bank of Qatar to its roster.
US data management company McObject has appointed Ian Hillier-Brook as its representative in the UK and Europe.
JP Morgan Chase & Co. has notified 465,000 holders of prepaid cards issued by the bank that some of their personal data may have been exposed to hackers after its systems were breached last summer.
Mobile POS provider PayAnywhere has struck a deal to enable its merchant clients to accept payments via PayPal’s payment card.
Chinese officials today have banned financial institutions in the country from using Bitcoin as currency, asserting that bitcoins are merely virtual goods that have no status as legal tender.
Nearly 90 percent of consumers likely will purchase at least one gift card from a Website or mobile app this season, according to a study of consumer shopping trends conducted by InComm, a prepaid product and transaction services provider.
Global gift card provider Stored Value Solutions (SVS) is strengthening its position in China with the launch of a new data center in Shanghai.
Visa prepaid gift cards and Discover multimerchant gift cards will be available in more ATMs in the Southwest this holiday through a reseller agreement between Better ATM Services and Express Teller Services announced yesterday.
Sapient Global Markets has launched a close of business reporting service that it says will help capital and commodity markets trading firms to meet regulation at lower cost.
