Cardline articles from April 2003

Cardline archives from April 2003

MASTERCARD RAISES MAESTRO RATES.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... MasterCard International's U.S. board has approved domestic interchange rate increases for its Maestro PIN-based point-of-sale debit network, CardLine has learned. The current Maestro rate is a flat 9.5 cents per transaction ffective July 1,...

SEARS CANADA SAYS IT'S UNAFFECTED BY U.S. DEVELOPMENTS.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Sears Canada, which is 54% owned by Sears, Roebuck and Co., today said that it will proceed with the planned rollout of its cobranded MasterCard despite Sears, Roebuck's recent announcement that it may sell its $30.8 billion card portfolio...

BROADENED ACCEPTANCE OF SEARS CARD DELAYED.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Sears, Roebuck and Co.'s proposed credit card portfolio sale and chargeoff problems have overshadowed the retailer's plan to broaden acceptance of its proprietary card to other merchants. Last year, Sears selected merchant processor Global...

NEW AND OLD CERTAINTIES: DEATH AND INTERNET TAXES.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Consumers will almost certainly be paying taxes for their Internet purchases because of the huge growth in online sales and the budget shortfalls that states are facing this year, William S. McKiernan, chairman and CEO of CyberSource Corp.,...

FRAUD CONFERENCE DRAWS LARGER-THAN-EXPECTED ATTENDANCE.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... A group that will help protect online merchants from card fraud held its inaugural conference this week, attracting more than 150 attendees-a lot more than it had anticipated, says Julie Fergerson, vice president of emerging technologies at...

CARDINALCOMMERCE SIGNS AGREEMENT.(Crittson Financial LLC)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Mentor, OH-based CardinalCommerce Corp. has signed an agreement to offer its payment authentication software to Crittson Financial LLC, CardinalCommerce announced Wednesday. CardinalCommerce's Cardinal Payment Authentication Platform and...

COMPUTER SERVICES SELECTS CYOTA.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Computer Services Inc., a Paduach, KY-based bank processing company, today announced that it has selected Cyota to provide Verified by Visa to its nearly 500 customer banks. Computer Services will launch Cyota's SecureSuite processor edition as...

CONCORD CUTS 2002 REVENUE BY 10%.(Concord EFS Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Concord EFS Inc., the Memphis, TN-based electronic funds transfer processor and network owner, has cut its 2002 revenue by 10% because of an accounting change, a spokesperson tells CardLine today. The change subtracts interchange fee revenue...

AMERICAN EXPRESS OFFERS REBATE BLUE CARD.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... American Express Co. began offering this month its trail-blazing Blue smart card with a rebate. The no-annual-fee credit card offers up to a 5% rebate. A direct-mail piece for the new card, however, does not mention the chip on the envelope or...

NEW YORK APPELLATE COURT REINSTATES FCNB LAWSUIT.(First Consumers National Bank)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... New York's Appellate Court has reinstated a class-action lawsuit against bankrupt Spiegel Inc.'s card-issuing First Consumers National Bank. The court ruled that in a February 2002 decision the trial judge used the wrong standard in dismissing...

U.S. ATTORNEY ALLEGES PAYPAL VIOLATED PATRIOT ACT.(eBay Inc)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... The federal government alleged Friday that eBay Inc.'s PayPal Internet payment service violated the USA Patriot Act by providing payment processing for alleged illegal online gambling, eBay Inc. disclosed today in its annual report filed with...

AMEX LAUNCHES NBA, WNBA COMMERCIALS.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... American Express Co. today launched a national television ad campaign featuring members of the National Basketball Association and the Women's National Basketball Association. The campaign is expected to run throughout the NBA playoffs, NBA...

MBNA NAMES NEW CFO.(Vernon H. C. Wright)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... MBNA Corp. today named Vernon H. C. Wright the company's chief financial officer, replacing M. Scot Kaufman, who has been named chairman of the corporation's finance and loan committee and a member of the executive committee. MBNA also named...

FIRST DATA, FIRST CITIZENS BANK EXTEND PACT.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... First Data Corp. announced last week that it signed a five-year card-processing extension agreement with First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. of Raleigh, NC. First Data will provide credit and debit card processing and other card portfolio...

JUDGE REFUSES TO DISMISS LAWSUIT AGAINST VISA, MASTERCARD.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... U.S. District Judge John Gleeson today denied a motion by Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International to dismiss a merchant class-action lawsuit led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The lawsuit concerns the associations' honor-all-cards rules. Gleeson also...

FIRST DATA, CONCORD DEAL REPORTEDLY NEAR.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... The board of Greenwood Village, CO-based First Data Corp. is scheduled to meet later today amid rumors and published reports that the company is close to finalizing a deal to purchase Concord EFS Inc., CardLine has learned. The New York Times...

INTERCEPT AGREES TO PAY MASTERCARD AND FIRST DATA $5.85 MILLION.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Beleaguered merchant processor InterCept Inc. announced yesterday it had agreed to pay $5.85 million to MasterCard International and First Data Corp. for exceeding MasterCard's chargeback limits. The payment caused InterCept to restate 2002...

CREDIT UNIONS' CARD PORTFOLIO SALES INCREASED IN 2002.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... AssetExchange, a Portland, OR-based company that brokers credit-union card portfolios online, said 40 credit unions sold their card portfolios last year, up 30% compared with 2001. The portfolios ranged in size from less than $1 million in...

BAY AREA ORDERS 400,000 TRANSIT SMART CARDS.(Metropolitan Transportation Commission)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... A long-delayed smart card project took a big step forward last week with the approval to order $8 million in card-reading equipment and 400,000 chip cards costing about $1.6 million. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission approved the...

MOODY'S DOWNGRADES FIRST CONSUMERS' BONDS.(First Consumers National Bank. )(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Moody's Investors Service today downgraded four of six outstanding classes of securities backed by the bank card and private-label receivables of Spiegel Inc.'s First Consumers National Bank. Moody's cited "marked deterioration" in the credit...

METRIS RECEIVES $125 MILLION TERM LOAN.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Thomas H. Lee Equity Fund IV LP has agreed to provide Metris Companies Inc. with a $125 million term loan, according to a U.S. Securities Exchange Commission filing. Minnetonka, MN-based Metris said the term loan, which carries a 12% annual...

FIRST DATA, CONCORD ANNOUNCE MERGER.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Greenwood Village, CO-based First Data Corp. today announced a definitive agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction with Concord EFS Inc., the Memphis, TN-based transaction processor and owner of Star, the nation's leading ATM and...

PULSE PRESIDENT SAYS BANKS WANT A SAY.(Stan Paur, president of the Houston-based Pulse EFT network)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Unlike Charlie Fote, First Data Corp. chairman and CEO, Stan Paur, president of the Houston-based Pulse EFT network, does not believe First Data owning Concord EFS Inc.'s Star would have a positive influence on Star's ability to retain ties...

MASTERCARD PUMPS UP ITS PAYPASS CHIP CARD.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Four Chevron gasoline stations in the Orlando, FL, area will upgrade their gas pumps in the next two weeks to accept the contactless PayPass smart card that three MasterCard issuers have mailed to 15,000 local consumers as part of a pilot....

RETAIL DECISIONS' EBITGUARD THRIVES IN ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... The slowdown in retail sales has resulted in new clients for Retail Decisions Inc.'s ebitGuard's fraud-prevention software, top Retail Decisions' executives tell CardLine today. The new business is coming from retailers who mistakenly lumped...

GLOBAL PAYMENTS SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH INTESABCI.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Global Payments Inc., Canada's largest Visa and MasterCard acquirer, has signed an agreement with IntesaBci Canada, a full-service chartered bank that is a subsidiary of Milan-based Banca Intesa S.p.A. Atlanta-based Global will provide...

FAIR ISAAC DROPS ITS COMMA AND "AND".(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Fair, Isaac and Co. Inc. simplified its name effective Tuesday to Fair Isaac Corp., the San Rafael, CA-based firm announced. The logo and ticker symbol (FIC) for the analytics and predictive modeling company are unchanged. Copyright c 2003...

HYPERCOM TO SUPPLY TERMINALS TO MSI.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Hypercom Corp. recently announced that is has signed a 12-month, mult-million dollar contract to supply MSI Merchant Services Inc. Hypercom will supply Union, NJ-based MSI with 10,000 card payment terminals and technology with HyperSafe...

US AIRWAYS SIGNS BANK OF AMERICA AS ACQUIRER.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... US Airways Group Inc., which emerged from bankruptcy Monday, announced this week that it has signed a five-and-a-half-year deal with Bank of America to be US Airways' merchant acquirer beginning May 15. In March, US Air announced it had signed...

SOUTH KOREA'S GOVERNMENT COMES TO THE AID OF CARD COMPANIES.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... South Korea's government will ask the country's banks, brokerage firms and insurers for 5 trillion won ($4 billion) to purchase half of the 10.4 trillion won in card-backed bonds issued by the nation's card companies. The bonds are scheduled to...

INTERCEPT RENEGOTIATES CREDIT FACILITY.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... InterCept Inc. has renegotiated its credit facility with Wachovia Bank and is seeking a line of credit from a new bank, the Norcross, GA-based merchant processor announced recently. InterCept will pay a fee of $125,000 to Wachovia for the...

ASSETEXCHANGE BROKERS THREE PORTFOLIO SALES.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... AssetExchange, a Portland, OR, online broker of credit-union card portfolios, announced earlier this week that it had sold three programs. Westerly Community Credit Union, in Westerly, RI, sold its portfolio that has $1.6 million in card...

PENTAGON FEDERAL JOINS SURCHARGE-FREE ATM NETWORK.(Pentagon Federal Credit Union)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Pentagon Federal Credit Union in Alexandria, VA, has joined ATM National Inc.'s Allpoint surcharge-free ATM network, says Allpoint President Ben Psillas. ATM National targets small to medium-sized financial institutions or debit card issuers...

CARDSYSTEMS NAMES NEW EXECUTIVES.(John Moynahan senior vice president and CFO, John Skeele senior vice president)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Payment processor CardSystems, which recently raised $23.6 million, today announced that it has revamped its management team. CardSystems named John Moynahan senior vice president and CFO, John Skeele senior vice president of marketing and...

EXPERIAN APPOINTS SMITH CHAIRMAN.(Craig T. Smith)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2003... Credit-reporting agency and marketing information services provider Experian today announced that it has named Craig T. Smith, currently CEO of its North American operations, as its worldwide chairman. The position had been vacant for about two...

ONLINE FRAUD LIABILITY SHIFT BEGINS TOMORROW.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Online fraud liability will shift tomorrow to card issuers from merchants for cardholders who use Verified by Visa's authentication system, a Visa spokesperson tells CardLine today. Visa, which has been promoting VbyV's launch for more than a...

EFUNDS SIGNS FIRST VERIFIED BY VISA CONTRACT.(with Nevada Federal Credit Union)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... EFunds Corp. yesterday reported it signed Nevada Federal Credit Union to be its first client using the Verified by Visa online authentication system. Scottsdale, AZ-based eFunds is using Cyota's SecureSite Processor Edition for its online...

CONTACTLESS LOYALTY PROGRAM COMING THIS SUMMER.(from Integrity For You Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Dallas-based Integrity For You Inc. will launch a test this summer of a contactless chip-based loyalty program called Personal Recognition at a dozen medium-priced and fine dining restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Barry Hyman, vice...

TOTAL MERCHANT SERVICES, GLOBAL RENEW CONTRACT.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Total Merchant Services Inc., a Basalt, CO, independent sales organization, announced today that it has signed a five-year contract renewal with Global Payments Inc. Atlanta-based Global will provide front- and back-end payment processing as...

ABANCO AWARDS HYPERCOM A $16 MILLION TERMINAL CONTRACT.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Abanco International LLC, a Rosemont, IL-based independent sales organization, has awarded a $16 million payment-terminal contract to Hypercom Corp., a Phoenix-based terminal maker. The deal represents the first such contract between the two...

PSCU DISTRIBUTES MORE THAN $11 MILLION TO MEMBERS.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... PSCU Financial Services, the nation's largest credit-union service organization, recently announced that it has distributed more than $11.5 million in dividend checks to its more than 500 member credit unions. St. Petersburg, FL-based PSCU said...

EFUNDS NAMES ATM EXECUTIVE.(David McCrary)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Scottsdale, AZ-based eFunds Corp. has named a new head of ATM product sales Funds, the largest ATM operator in the U.S. with at least 17,000 off-premise machines under contract, named David McCrary vice president of national sales for its ATM...

VISA'S 2002 GLOBAL SALES VOLUME INCREASED 15%.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Visa International last week reported that its 2002 global sales volume was $2.476 trillion, up $326 billion, or 15%, compared with 2001. Visa debit volume was more than $1.1 trillion, up 18.7% compared with 2001. Visa credit products-Classic,...

CHECK CARD POPULAR FOR E-COMMERCE.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Most industry observers over the years have said that the vast majority-90% or more-of purchases initiated on the Internet are conducted with credit cards ew Visa U.S.A. data, though, suggest signature-based debit cards are gaining in...

ALLIANCE DATA, LARGE SHAREHOLDER PLAN TO SELL SHARES.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Alliance Data Systems Corp. and its second-largest shareholder, Limited Brands Inc., plan to sell nine million shares of Alliance Data, according to a filing Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Alliance Data, a Dallas-based...

REVOLVING CREDIT SPURTS IN FEBRUARY.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Americans added about $5.4 billion to their revolving credit debts in February, ending the month at a seasonally adjusted total of $721.1 billion, the Federal Reserve reported today. February's increase translated into a 9% annualized gain...

FEWER AMERICANS PLAN TO CHARGE TAXES TO CREDIT CARDS.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Only 1% of Americans will charge income-tax payments their credit cards this year compared with 3% last year, according to a survey released this morning by Cambridge Consumer Credit Index. "What concerns me is that they are very low...

STUDY CRITICAL OF CREDIT-COUNSELING AGENCIES TO BE RELEASED.(Consumer Federation of America, National Consumer Law Center question not-for-profit status of credit-counseling services)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Two prominent consumer groups will release a study Wednesday charging not-for-profit credit-counseling agencies with deceiving and harming debtors with bad advice and high fees. Typically, about two-thirds of a debtor's unsecured debt is owed...

GM CARD KEEPS ROLLING.(General Motors Corp., Household International Inc. mark four million mark with bonus points promotion)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... General Motors Corp.'s GM Card passed the four million mark in new GM vehicle redemptions April 4 at 4-44 p.m., a spokesperson tells CardLine today. In honor of the milestone, the GM Card, a cobranded card issued by Household International...

MINNESOTA READIES CHILD-SUPPORT DEBIT CARD.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Minnesota soon will roll out statewide its debit card program to distribute child-support payments. The card, called ReliaCard, is a Visa-branded, signature- and PIN-based debit card that is reloaded with value when a child-support payment is...

HBOS CARD SERVICES, CYOTA SIGN AGREEMENT.(for SecureSuite software)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Cardiff, Wales-based HBOS Card Services, the United Kingdom's fourth-largest card issuer, has signed an agreement to use Cyota's SecureSuite for online purchases, an HBOS spokesperson tells CardLine today. Cyota's SecureSuite, which provides...

KOREA'S CARD ISSUERS TO RAISE CAPITAL.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... South Korea's eight credit card issuers Friday finalized plans to boost capital this year by 4.55 trillion won ($3.63 billion), according to published reports. The card issuers will do this through rights' offerings and subordinated bond...

FAIR ISAAC'S NEW PROMOTION.(company promotes National Credit Power Week)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Fair Isaac Corp. has created National Credit Power Week and tossed in a prize worth as much as $10,000 to boost consumers' knowledge of their own credit standing and to promote Fair Isaac's growing direct-to-consumer business. Consumers who...

PSCU REPORTS HIGH FRAUD-RECOVERY RATE.(PSCU Financial Services)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... PSCU Financial Services, the nation's largest credit-union service organization, yesterday disclosed that it had an extremely high credit card fraud-recovery rate in 2002. St. Petersburg, FL-based PSCU said that out of 74,000 cases of suspected...

BANK ONE CARDHOLDERS CAN PAY TAXES WITH THEIR CARDS.(as a result of marketing agreeement with Official Payments Corp.)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Bank One Corp. customers can earn rewards when they use their Visa cards to pay state and federal taxes either online or on the telephone as part of a joint marketing agreement between Bank One and Official Payments Corp., a Bank One...

FIRST DATA TO RESELL CYBERSOURCE SERVICES.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... First Data Corp.'s First Data Merchant Services and CyberSource Corp. today announced that they have signed a master reseller agreement. As part of the agreement, First Data's alliance and client banks can offer CyberSource's secure payment and...

JUDGE RULES VISA, MASTERCARD VIOLATED CALIFORNIA LAW.
April 11, 2003... Visa and MasterCard International say they will appeal California Superior Court Judge Ronald Sabraw's decision ordering the card associations to refund to cardholders more than $800 million in currency-exchange fees. Sabraw, who sits on the...

NEARLY 13 MILLION CARD NUMBERS EXPOSED IN FEBRUARY HACKING.(at DPI Merchant Services)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Nearly 13 million card account numbers were exposed in February's hacking of the database of independent sales organization, DPI Merchant Services (CardLine 2-19), John Verdeschi, MasterCard International's director of electronic commerce and...

MASTERCARD IS WORKING WITH CREDIT UNIONS, COMMUNITY BANKS.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... MasterCard International is working with credit unions and community banks to advise them on ways they can enhance the value of their card portfolios, Bill Mathis, MasterCard's senior vice president for member relations, tells CardLine. "We...

TSYS EXPANDS TS2 FRAUD-DETECTION MODULE.(Total System Services Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Total System Services Inc.(TSYS) has expanded its CardGuard fraud-detection module to include TSYS Notification, a real-time fraud-notification warning system, a TSYS spokesperson tells CardLine. Once CardGuard, which is fully integrated into...

VERIZON CUSTOMERS CAN PAY PHONE BILLS AT SOME 7-11 STORES.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Verizon Communications Corp.'s telephone customers can now pay their telephone bills and order telephone services at Vcom multifunction ATMs located inside some 7-Eleven Stores Inc. Verizon and 7-Eleven announced yesterday that Verizon...

NORTHWEST SAVINGS TO INCREASE ATMS.(at Kwik Fill-Red Apple food stores)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Northwest Savings Bank Corp., of Warren, PA, is expanding its ATM relationship with the Kwik Fill-Red Apple food store chain, which is also in Warren. Northwest announced Monday that it will deploy bank-branded ATMs in 23 additional Kwik Fill...

CARDSYSTEMS NAMES SALES EXECUTIVES.(Alan Forgione, Kevin Kane, Robert Robinson)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Payment Processor CardSystems has named three sales executives. Robert Robinson was named senior vice president for financial industry sales; Alan Forgione was named vice president of sales for the eastern region, and Kevin Kane was named vice...

CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST AMERICAN EXPRESS.(concering failure to disclose foreign currency-exchange fee)
April 11, 2003... American Express Co. today disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against it for allegedly failing to disclose its foreign currency-exchange fee. The lawsuit was filed earlier...

RULING SPARKS OTHER LAWSUITS AGAINST VISA AND MASTERCARD.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... The successful lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard International concerning the card associations' embedded 1% currency-exchange fee is sparking similar lawsuits elsewhere, says James Baum, an attorney with Schrag & Baum, a Berkeley, CA, law...

VISA TO BEGIN CISP ENFORCEMENT.(Cardholder Information Security Program)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Visa U.S.A.'s grace period for service providers to meet the database security standards of its Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) will end Sept. 30, according to Tom Fowler, Visa vice president. The program initially set a May 1,...

FIRST DATA'S PLANNED ACQUISITION HELPING THE COMPETITION.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... First Data Corp.'s planned acquistion of Concord EFS Inc. has been drumming up business for its competitor Vital Processing Services, Jonathan Palmer, Vital's president and CEO, tells CardLine at the Electronic Transactions Association's 2003...

FIRST DATA MAY FACE REGULATORY TROUBLE.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... The acquisition of Concord EFS Inc. by First Data Corp. will vastly expand First Data's market share in two debit-related areas, and one antitrust attorney believes that fact will spark a challenge. Concord is the largest driver of ATMs in the...

FIRST DATA REPORTS 20% INCREASE IN FIRST-QUARTER NET INCOME.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... First Data Corp. today announced net income of $292.6 million in the first quarter, up 20% from $244.3 million from the year-earlier period, buoyed by a 19% increase in the revenues of its Western Union money transfer company. Western Union...

SOUTH KOREAN ISSUER TO CLOSE OFFICES.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2003... Kookmin Credit Card Co., a South Korean card issuer, will close 53 of its 96 branch offices this month as part of a restructuring, according to published reports. Kookmin, the card unit of Kookmin Bank, the country's largest bank, did not...

CREDIT QUALITY HANGS IN THE BALANCE.(according to report from Standard & Poor's)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Asserting that "credit cards are the canary of the consumer credit industry," securities rating agency Standard & Poor's yesterday released a report called "War Woes for U.S. Credit Cards" assessing the outlook for card issuers' credit...

SPIEGEL PLACES SOME BLAME FOR SALE DROP ON CARD LOSS.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Bankrupt Spiegel Inc., which Thursday reported a 28% drop in March sales, blamed part of the decline on the company's early March decision to stop accepting credit cards issued by subsidiary First Consumers National Bank. "There were a lot...

ISSUERS REDUCE SUPPORT TO CREDIT-COUNSELING AGENCIES.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Creditors, including credit card issuers, have dramatically reduced the amount of money they give credit counseling agencies at a time when card industry-backed bankruptcy legislation will require people to seek credit counseling before they...

EARNINGS FALL AT GE CARD SERVICES.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... General Electric Co. today reported that first-quarter net earnings at its GE Card Services unit fell 14% to $181 million from $209 million in 2002's first quarter. Card Services, which includes the nation's largest third-party retail card...

CAPITAL ONE HIRES NEW ADVERTISING AGENCY.(McCann-Erickson Worldwide Inc. wins ad account)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Capital One Financial Corp. today announced that it has hired McCann- Erickson Worldwide as its new advertising agency, replacing D'Arcy Advertising. D'Arcy created Capital One's well- known television commercials "What's in Your Wallet" in...

7-ELEVEN, INGENICO SIGN TERMINAL DEAL.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Dallas-based 7-Eleven Stores Inc. and Roswell, GA-based Ingenico Inc. have reached an agreement in which 5,300 7-Eleven convenience stores will deploy Ingenico touch-screen eN-Touch 1000 point-of-sale terminals. Financial terms were not...

CYBERTEL NAMES BOARD CHAIRMAN.(Cybertel Holdings appoints Ronald F. Williamson chairmand of the board)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Cybertel Communications Corp.'s Cybertel Holdings yesterday named Ronald F. Williamson chairman of its board of directors. Williamson was president and CEO of Citibank (South Dakota) N.A., the largest U.S. card issuer. Cybertel, an...

CITIBANK'S FIRST-QUARTER CARD INCOME INCREASES 27%.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank, the world's largest card issuer, today reported global first-quarter net card income of $735 million, up 27% compared with $579 million for the same three-month period last year. In North America, income growth was...

BANK OF AMERICA'S FIRST-QUARTER CARD INCOME UP 18%.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Bank of America today reported first-quarter card income of $681 million, up 18% compared with $577 million for 2002's first quarter, but down 7% from $736 million in 2002's fourth quarter. Charlotte, NC-based Bank of America reported $29.1...

CARD REVENUES DROP 9% AT FLEETBOSTON.(FleetBoston Financial Corp.)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... FleetBoston Financial Corp. today reported that first-quarter credit card revenues were $156 million, down 9% compared with $172 million for the same three-month period last year. Fleet did not disclose other card numbers. Boston- based...

GM CARD SPONSORS AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... General Motors Corp.'s GM Card has signed a one-year sponsorship and marketing agreement with the American Le Mans Series, the official sanctioning organization of endurance race car competition in North America, an American Le Mans Series...

ENCORE JOINS CO-OP NETWORK.(Encore Electronic Services Cooperative Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Encore Electronic Services Cooperative Inc., a Falls Church, VA-based credit-union service organization, has joined the CO-OP Network, the nation's largest credit-union EFT network, Tom Reed, Encore's president and CEO, tells CardLine today....

WESCOM CREDIT UNION JOINS PSCU'S LOYALTY PROGRAM.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... Wescom Credit Union, the nation's 19th-largest with more than $2 billion in assets, today announced that it will offer its cardholders a chance to participate PSCU Financial Services' CURewards program. Pasadena, CA-based Wescom's...

GE TO ISSUE CARD FOR MICHELIN'S TIRE CENTERS.(GE Distribution Finance)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2003... General Electric Co.'s GE Distribution Finance has signed a multiyear contract to issue a private-label commercial card for Tire Centers LLC, a subsidiary of tire manufacturer Michelin North America Inc., a GE spokesperson tells CardLine...