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American Express has launched a research pilot to study what marketing tactics and behavioral triggers can convince cardholders to save using its Serve prepaid account software platform.
Blackhawk Network this week announced a new distribution deal with the U.S. Postal Service, introducing the company’s gift card malls to select post offices in time for the holiday season.
NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based electronic payments association, and the European Central Bank (ECB) independently are taking steps to speed up the payments process with the goal of same-day settlement.
The FFIEC’s recently updated BSA/AML Examination Manual is emphasizing—as it has in the past—that the buck stops with issuing banks in terms of ultimate responsibility for BSA/AML compliance for prepaid access products, regardless of agreements or contracts with other players in the value chain.
Fewer than a third of banks are at the implementation stage of projects implementing the Basel intraday liquidity monitoring rules that come into force next month – and most believe that industry collaboration will be needed to achieve a successful outcome.
A platform for sharing cyber-security threat intelligence among financial services companies has been launched by US post-trade utility the DTCC and non-profit security organisation FS-ISAC. Called Soltra Edge, the platform gathers data about cyber-security threats and converts it into a standardised format for sharing.
Debate on the EU Payments Package, composed of the revised Payment Services Directive and the Regulation on Interchange Fees, recommenced in Brussels on Nov. 19. Although the two pieces of legislation are part of one “package,” they’re at different stages in the legislative process, and depending on how they progress, the transition into law could be smooth for the industry—or not.
Payments industry participants are getting a taste of what compliance might be like under its new regulator the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR).
The payments industry is only starting to digest the potential consequences of the CFPB’s sweeping proposed rule on prepaid accounts.
In a new study, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is providing some much-needed data to the long-standing debate over whether prepaid cards should be permitted to offer an overdraft feature.
The CFPB expanded its budget, number of employees and its complaint volume in fiscal year 2014, according to its annual report.
As business process operations enter a new capter of accelerated transformation, technology services are not just a critical component for financial services firms – they are the business itself.
Simultaneously with the release of its 870-page prepaid account proposal last week, the CFPB issued a “Study of Prepaid Account Agreements.”
Prepaid industry leaders, which included representatives from InComm, Blackhawk Network and Green Dot, met with members of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging during a hearing yesterday to outline how they’re working to prevent fraudsters from using prepaid debit cards to swindle consumers, particularly phone scams perpetrated against the elderly.
Debate over revised European payments legislation, including interchange reforms, is set to begin in Brussels tomorrow.
As Bob Dylan, famously sang, The Times, They Are A-Changin’. Once, the tools required to carry out a bank raid usually comprised a shotgun, old stockings and a bag labelled “swag”. Today, it’s a laptop, computer programming skills and patience. And the nature of the crime is changing too – previously, the goal was often to get away with a few thousand pounds, before lying low for a while. Now, the “prize” sought may be the theft of millions or the personal details of thousands, to be then sold on.
The prepaid industry was well-represented at today’s CFPB field hearing on prepaid accounts in Wilmington, Del. The consensus among industry experts was that the popularity of prepaid products continues to grow and that the NPRM is the next step in the evolution of the industry, as the rules could create a level playing field for prepaid providers.
My original intent, based on attending the field hearing in Wilmington, Del., this morning, was to summarize the key elements for publication today. But, that won’t happen. The 870 pages that comprise the NPRM suggest why it took the CFPB extra time to create and why it will take industry time to understand everything the NPRM covers and, of course, the implications of the proposed rules.
We have the opportunity to make a difference, to be part of the process and to influence the outcome of prepaid regulations.
On the eve of the CFPB’s field hearing on GPR cards (and the rumored release of its GPR notice of proposed rulemaking), Consumer Reports has named the “best” GPR prepaid cards.
If you’re a third-party service provider to prepaid issuers, don’t overlook your Regulation E error resolution
responsibilities. Here are five topics to think about.
The Bancorp is inviting all industry representatives traveling to the CFPB field hearing on Thursday to use its complimentary workspace, which it created to make the trip more convenient and collaborative.
The U.S. Treasury and FinCen are addressing the importance of money services businesses (MSBs) to the financial system in the wake of reports that banks are refusing to do business with categories of companies, such as remittance companies and check cashers, because of the perceived risk of doing business with them following government agencies’ aggressive efforts in fighting money laundering.
A group of state and national merchant associations, 44 in all, sent a letter to congressional leaders today calling for the establishment of a single, national standard for notifying American consumers when businesses suffer a breach of security involving financial data or other sensitive personal information.
MasterCard Canada and Visa Canada are reducing interchange fees to an average net effective 1.5 percent rate for the next five years for consumer credit cards.
Yantra Financial Technologies, an electronic payment systems developer, has integrated its latest system for risk scoring of payments with the Ripple real-time settlement protocol. The integration means that institutions using the Ripple protocol can analyse transactions in seconds, including what other payments the customer recently made and potential concerns regarding a specific transaction. Risk levels can be assigned to certain transactions based on pre-determined criteria.
After a somewhat vague notice of its next field hearing, the CFPB updated its blog to specify that “prepaid accounts” will be the topic of the hearing, scheduled for 11 a.m. EST, Thursday, Nov. 13, in Wilmington, Del.—an exact location has not been given.
Yesterday the CFPB posted on its Website the announcement of its next field hearing, 11 a.m. EST, Thursday, Nov. 13, in Wilmington, Del.
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.
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.
FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion will meet this week to discuss the results of the 2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.
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.
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.
TD Bank has reached a settlement over a 2012 data breach that compromised customers’ personal information.
President Obama hours ago signed an executive order making chip-and-PIN card technology the standard for the federal government.
DOJ’s Operation Choke Point, which encourages financial institutions to scrutinize clients that process payments for certain types of businesses, continues to draw criticism from lawmakers and industry advocates, who argue that the policy is harmful to legitimate, legal businesses.
The social contract between the banking system and society is fundamentally broken. We deserve a financial system that we can all be proud of, one that is fairer and more sustainable than the current iteration.
The CFPB is gathering information about the methods banks and credit unions use to screen consumers before approving or denying them a checking account.
