Feb. 25, 2013 MasterCard Inc. today unveiled MasterPass, a cloud-based service that builds on its PayPass Wallet Services by eliminating the need for consumers to enter card or shipping details with each purchase and adding new tools to enhance online, mobile and in-store shopping. MasterPass will roll out through banks in Canada and Australia beginning […]
Feb. 25, 2013 PayPal continues its diversification into brick-and-mortar payments with the announcement that it will expand its PayPal Here mobile card reader to Europe, beginning in the U.K. this summer. The European iteration of PayPal Here will differ from the version launched in the U.S. nearly a year ago in some key ways, due […]
Feb. 25, 2013 Shanghai-based payment card network China UnionPay (CUP) continues its efforts to develop NFC payments, signing an agreement with Dutch digital payment security provider Gemalto to build “a secure mobile NFC ecosystem.” The partnership will cover deployment issues including trusted service manager interoperability, along with technology standards and specifications, the firms said. China […]
The Payments Council’s latest report, The Way We Pay, shows rapid changes in use of payment methods over the past decade – but cash is still in the mix.
Spanish bank Banco Santander has signed a deal with iZettle, a fledgling Swedish payments specialist that focuses on ‘social’ payments. The two companies plan to distribute mini chip-card readers to customers, so that they can accept card payments with smartphones and tablets.
February 2013 By Kate Fitzgerald, Emerging Payments Editor With less than three years to go before U.S. EMV liability-shift deadlines begin to take effect, payment industry participants beginning to make their plans are facing their first obstacle, as the U.S. debit networks wrestle with options for choosing a technology approach for routing chip-based debit transactions under […]
February 2013 By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 […]
By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 to 1999. By […]
In the history of bank robberies, the £30 million stolen by the Eurograbber attack in 2012 ranks as one of the all-time biggest, globally. And when you consider that this sum was stolen from more than 30,000 accounts across 30 banks in four European countries, using malware that affected both PCs and bank customers’ mobile […]
By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 to 1999. By […]
Feb. 20, 2013 Sweden-based mobile payments player iZettle this week announced the launch of a new smartphone-based card reader for small-business merchants that uses chip-and-PIN technology and Bluetooth to accept all major card brands, resolving iZettle’s six-month impasse with Visa Europe over a security issue. iZettle in 2011 began offering its card reader to merchants […]
Feb. 20, 2013 Australian supermarket giant Wesfarmers Ltd.’s Coles is conducting a small pilot of a MasterCard mobile wallet that enables customers to pay using NFC-equipped phones through an app that automatically links to the store’s loyalty program. The three-month pilot, conducted in partnership with GE Capital Australia, Vodafone and Gemalto, involves 60 Coles supermarket […]
Feb. 20, 2013 As more companies work to combine the power of social media with the popularity of gift cards, Melville, N.Y.-based GroupGifting.com has added a card scanning feature to its eGifter Web and mobile social gifting app. The scanning feature enables consumers to add plastic gift cards to their digital wallets in the eGifter app […]
February 2013 By Bill Grabarek, Senior Editor What started in late 2008 as a reseller operation, consisting of two people in an office offering payroll and corporate cards to small and midsize firms, London-based Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) has evolved into a program manager, e-money issuer, acquirer and provider of turnkey, white-label solutions. PFS […]
February 2013 Smart Card Alliance Payments Council has announced its committee members for 2013-2014. The council is managed by a steering committee composed of financial payments industry and smart chip technology vendors. Steering committee officers include: Jack Jania, Gemalto, and Oliver Manahan, MasterCard, co-chairs; Troy Bernard, Discover Financial Services, vice chair; and Deborah Baxley, Capgemini, secretary. […]
Feb. 19, 2013 Citigroup Inc. plans to expand a mobile payments service it has developed for its small-business customers to replace large cash payments in underbanked regions into Latin America. Citi recently launched a pilot of Mobile Collect in the Dominican Republic, targeting approximately 80,000 cash-based grocery stores and other small businesses and their suppliers. […]
Feb. 19, 2013 Buck Corp. is introducing a new mobile invoice service for small businesses that it touts as “dongle-free,” enabling businesses to send electronic invoices to any mobile phone and receive credit card payment without swiping a card. Buck Mobile Invoice is free to businesses using it, but participants must already have a merchant […]
Banks may have a poor reputation with the public, but the majority of people in the UK would be more likely to adopt mobile payment services if they are provided by a bank.
Indian bank ICICI and local mobile operator Aircel have launched a mobile financial services offering using Visa’s hosted platform solution.
For an event that is based around the idea of introducing new players and new concepts to the financial technology world, this year’s Finovate Europe was heavy on familiar faces and some increasingly familiar concepts.
Feb. 14, 2013 Pressure is mounting for U.S. debit networks to find a suitable technology for routing chip-based debit transactions under the Durbin Amendment network non-exclusivity rules, but a unified plan is not yet within sight, industry executives say after a new round of meetings this week to digest last week’s developments. MasterCard Inc. and […]
Feb. 14, 2013 A new “plug-and-play” mobile money platform from Visa Inc. is aimed at enabling financial institutions and mobile network operators in developing nations around the world to offer mobile financial services. The program—built on technology Visa acquired via its 2011 purchase of mobile financial services provider Fundamo—enables the payment network to host and […]
A 400% increase in malware for mobile devices masks a security scene where many of the threats are much as they have been for several years – but where the volume of attacks means that firms should think in terms of when they will be attacked rather than if they will be.
Indonesia-based PermataBank has developed the first mobile payments service for the BlackBerry Messenger service. The bank has teamed up with UK mobile banking solutions provider Monitise to roll out a commercial pilot of BBM Money in the country ahead of a full launch. BlackBerry users will have the option to access a Mobile Money account from their […]
Feb. 12, 2013 Shoppers are getting some help navigating Tokyo’s Ginza district from nearly 300 NFC-based location tags the city’s government has placed throughout the upscale retail hub. The system works with an Android app, available for download from the Google Play store, which enables users to search for and select a destination within Ginza, […]
Feb. 12, 2013 In the opening sessions of InComm’s annual Partner Alliance yesterday, CEO Brooks Smith and futurist Mike Walsh offered glimpses of their visions of the future. With a corporate acquisition strategy based on delivering new technologies to retailers, Smith focused his comments on a future filled with more choices—for retailers and their customers. […]
Feb. 12, 2013 Money transfer provider MoneyGram has launched a mobile version of its online transfer service, which enables users to send cash via smartphones using a mobile-optimized version of moneygram.com. The service is part of Dallas-based MoneyGram’s efforts to tap into what the company claims is a $50 billion cross-border remittance industry—much of which […]
Feb. 11, 2013 Italian software provider TAS Group and Payair South Europe S.A., a Swedish mobile commerce company, have agreed to launch a mobile commerce platform that incorporates Payair’s commerce platform and a customization solution supplied by TAS. The platform will support large-scale retailers that require advanced automation of their purchase and payment processes, according […]
Germany’s Commerzbank has adopted a visual transaction signing tool from British security firm Cronto for its online banking customers, designed to protect against Trojan malware.
Feb. 7, 2013 Consumers are responding positively to merchant offers in the Isis Mobile Wallet test, according to early data since the pilot launched in late October in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas, according to Jim Stapleton, Isis chief sales officer. “What we are seeing is once they leave the store, about two-thirds [of consumers […]
Feb. 7, 2013 The Utah Transit Authority (UTA), which has been at the forefront of U.S. transit system mobile payment development since introducing an open-loop, contactless payment system for city buses and trains in Salt Lake City beginning in 2009, this fall plans to add a contactless, closed-loop prepaid card to its consumer payment options. […]
Feb. 7, 2013 Do GPR cards pose significant money laundering threats? That’s the question the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta explores in recently published paper. Among the paper’s findings is that, as GPR prepaid cards have grown in popularity and come under increased scrutiny by regulators, significant regulatory measures […]
Weve, the advertising and commerce joint venture between mobile network operators Vodafone, O2 and EE, has hired payments industry veteran David Sear as its permanent chief executive.
February 2013 By Kate Fitzgerald, Emerging Payments Editor The retailer-led mobile payment venture Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) has disclosed little about the shape of its developing payment platform since it formed six months ago, but the few details emerging so far are fueling fresh waves of industry buzz. At a panel during the National […]
Feb. 5, 2013 U.K.-based mobile payments provider mPowa has inked a white-label deal with Portugal Telecom Group that will enable the carrier to offer small businesses a card reader-based mobile payments service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but TechCrunch reports it was a multimillion-dollar pact with a seven-year term. The partnership opens […]
Further evidence that bank IT spending is growing again comes from industry analysts at Ovum, which is predicting overall growth of 3.4% among retail banks, reaching $118.6 billion in 2013, as they focus on “customer satisfaction and revenue growth”.
The enterprise is experiencing massive changes as the major technology trends of cloud computing and tablets are intersecting to upset the balance of legacy computing environments.
Jan. 31, 2013 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today announced it has begun an inquiry into “the impact of financial products marketed to students through colleges and universities” to determine whether these products are “in the best interest” of students. Such products include student ID cards that double as debit cards and cards used […]
A study shows that 62% of City traders “admit to missing key investment or sell opportunities because they didn’t keep track of time zone differences”.
Seven innovative start-up companies have been chosen to take part in a major new London-based project that aims to bolster advanced technologies in financial services. The seven firms will participate in a twelve-week programme in which they will gain support from the major banks and gather interest from venture capitalists and investors.
