Cardline articles from August 2008

Cardline archives from August 2008

GLOBAL PAYMENTS POSTS 23% QUARTERLY INCREASE IN PROFITS AND REVENUE.(Global Payments Inc. financial news)(Financial report)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Strong growth of Global Payments Inc.'s merchant-services business helped boost revenue and income for the Atlanta-based processor, which announced its fourth-quarter fiscal results yesterday. Global Payments said net income for the quarter,...

WARY GAS STATION CLERK FOILS CARD THEFT ATTEMPT.
August 1, 2008... The operator of a Marathon gas station in Cicero, Ill., near Chicago, reportedly told police this week that two men had climbed onto the roof of the station and placed aluminum foil around an antenna that transmits payment card transaction...

DISCOVER[R] NETWORK. LEARN HOW. BUYERS HAVE UPPER HAND IN MERCHANT ACQUIRING MERGERS.(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... The nation's weakening economy is suppressing acquisitions in the merchant acquiring industry. "Since April, the market has definitely continued to deteriorate," says Marc Abbey, managing partner of Linthicum, Md.-based First Annapolis...

SYNOVUS NET INCOME DROPS 93%, QUADRUPLES LOAN-LOSS PROVISION.(Financial report)
August 1, 2008... Synovus Financial Corp. yesterday reported net income of $12.1 million for the second quarter ended June 30, down 92.6% from $162.8 million during the same period last year. Net charge-offs for the quarter were $70.7 million, or 1.04% of total...

USA TECHNOLOGIES DOUBLES Q4 REVENUE.(Financial report)
August 1, 2008... USA Technologies Inc. this week reported a 108% increase in revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended June 30, to $5 million compared with $2.4 million for the same quarter a year ago. The company's earnings report did not disclose...

ONLINE BANKING SITES HAVE SECURITY FLAWS.
August 1, 2008... A recent study by a University of Michigan professor found that more than 75% of bank Web sites had at least one security flaw. Prof. Atul Prakash plans to present the study at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security tomorrow. The study...

OBERTHUR REPORTS LOWER ACTIVITY IN U.S. FOR CARDS.(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... France-based Oberthur Technologies says it experienced "lower activity" in the United States for magnetic stripe cards in the second quarter though sales of contactless cards to the U.S. increased 50%. The company did not release specific...

BRIEFS.
August 1, 2008... RapidAdvance, LLC has signed a deal with Humboldt Merchant Services to provide its customers with a merchant cash advance product. Novato, Calif-based Circle Bank has signed an agreement to participate in the MoneyPass surcharge-free ATM...

HOUSING BILL MANDATES ACQUIRERS REPORT TRANSACTIONS.
August 1, 2008... Merchant acquirers would have to report their retailers' credit and debit card transactions to the Internal Revenue Service as part of a provision of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The Senate on Saturday passed the bill, which...

METAVANTE'S Q2 REVENUE RISES WHILE INCOME DROPS.(Metavante Technologies Inc., financial news)(Financial report)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Metavante Technologies Inc., a Milwaukee-based payments and banking-services company, today reported net income of $36.9 million for the second quarter ended June 30, down 13.9% from $42.9 million for the same period year. Revenues rose 7.4%,...

HOUSEHOLD-DEBT WOES SPREADING TO CREDIT CARDS.
August 1, 2008... Americans' household finances are eroding fast, a result of rising debt and falling home prices, and consumers increasingly are turning to their credit cards as a short-term fix, according to new research from Moody's Economy.com, a division of...

COMPENSATION PLANS ARE INTEGRAL TO ATTRACTING AGENTS.(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Independent sales organizations interested in hiring merchant-level salespeople should create a single, straightforward plan to present all candidates, Matt Clyne, senior vice president of McLean, Va.-based Sage Payment Solutions, said last...

DOVER EXPECTS TO SELL TRITON BY END OF YEAR.
August 1, 2008... Dover Corp. expects to sell financially troubled off-premise ATM manufacturer Triton Systems of Delaware Inc. before the end of the year, Paul Goldberg, Dover treasurer and director of investor relations, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister...

SMALL-BUSINESS CONFIDENCE ROSE IN JULY, DISCOVER SAYS.
August 1, 2008... Small-business owners' confidence in the economy rebounded in July after sinking to its lowest level in June, as concerns about cash flow eased, according to a monthly survey by Discover Financial Services. In July, 33% of 1,000 small-business...

FRENCH BANKS TO EXPAND NEXT YEAR'S SIGNIFICANT NFC TRIAL.
August 1, 2008... French banks involved in a landmark trial of NFC mobile payments next year plan to download their payment applications over the mobile network to SIM cards in the phones, says one of the vendors on the project. All the major French banks and...

BRIEFS.
August 1, 2008... TNB Card Services has purchased the credit card portfolios of Oregon Pioneer Federal Credit Union of Portland, Ore., and NH Community Federal Credit Union of Claremont, N.H., adding more than $2 million in receivables to the overall balances of...

NCR NET INCOME DECLINES DESPITE STRONG ATM SALES.(Financial report)
August 1, 2008... NCR Corp., the world's largest ATM manufacturer based on 2007 shipments, today reported net income of $44 million for second quarter ended June 30, down 55% from $98 million for the same three-month period last year. The Dayton, Ohio-based...

FIFTH THIRD SEEKS FULL APPEALS-COURT REVIEW IN BREACH CASE.
August 1, 2008... Fifth Third Bancorp plans to ask the full 3RD U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to review a recent ruling by a three-judge panel from the court that would open the door for card issuers to seek damages from third-party processors for costs...

REPORTING RETAILERS' TRANSACTIONS WOULD PROVE COSTLY FOR ISOS.
August 1, 2008... Mandatory reporting of merchant credit and debit card transactions to the Internal Revenue Service could prove time consuming and costly for acquirers and the independent sales organizations, according to Paul Martaus, president of the Mountain...

LAW FIRMS WITHDRAW CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST ATM ISO.
August 1, 2008... Two law firms voluntarily withdrew a class-action lawsuit filed against TRM Corp., the nation's second-largest ATM independent sales organization, three months after taking the legal action. A U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., where TRM is...

ADVANTA'S EARNINGS DECLINE 83% ON CREDIT-LOSS PROVISIONS.(Financial report)
August 1, 2008... Earnings for business credit card issuer Advanta Corp. declined 83.1% in the second quarter ended June 30, to $4 million from $23.7 million in the same period last year. The company attributed the decrease to a massive increase in provisions...

LOYALTY-REWARDS COMPANY TO ENABLE MOBILE REGISTRATION.
August 1, 2008... RocketBux Inc. has signed an agreement with Thanks Again LLC to enable consumers to register for Thanks Again products and receive promotions using mobile phones, RocketBux says. The phones of consumers who register their credit cards with...

AMERICANS LIKE ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS ON THE ROAD, STUDY FINDS.
August 1, 2008... Seventy-three percent of respondents surveyed as part of Visa Inc.'s 2008 U.S. International Travel Outlook study cited credit and debit cards as their preferred payment method while traveling. Western Wats conducted the telephone interviews...

BRIEFS.
August 1, 2008... Heartland Payment Systems today announced a partnership with Identification Systems Group to deliver Heartland's campus card services to an expanded network of colleges and universities. American Express Co. and Concur Technologies Inc., a...

CREDIT CARD REFORM BILL HEADS TO HOUSE COMMITTEE FOR VOTE.
August 1, 2008... The U.S. House Financial Services Committee begins a markup session tomorrow on the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, with the 70-member committee likely to cast votes on the legislation after considering amendments. Observers say the bill,...

SOUTH KOREAN ATM MANUFACTURER BUYS TRITON SYSTEMS.
August 1, 2008... The South Korean parent of ATM maker Nautilus Hyosung America Inc. this morning announced it has signed an agreement to purchase ATM manufacturer Triton Systems of Delaware Inc. for an undisclosed price. Dover Corp., Triton's owner, and...

BUSH SIGNS BILL COMPELLING ACQUIRERS TO REPORT TRANSACTIONS.(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... President Bush this morning signed into law the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which contains a provision mandating merchant acquirers to report their retailers' credit and debit card transactions to the Internal Revenue Service....

FISERV CITES CONTRACT CHANGES, CHECKFREE BUY FOR DIP IN INCOME.
August 1, 2008... Fiserv Inc. yesterday reported net income of $99 million for the second quarter ended June 30, down 8.3% from $108 million for the same period last year. The Brookfield, Wis.-based transaction processor says revenue rose 38.4%, to $1.3 billion...

A DEBT PURCHASER SETS A COMPANY RECORD FOR CASH COLLECTIONS.
August 1, 2008... Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc., a debt purchaser that mostly buys and collects delinquent credit card portfolios, recovered a company record of $85 million in cash collections during the second quarter ended June 30, up 31.6% from $64.6...

CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT EXCHANGES GIFT CARDS FOR 6,800 GUNS.
August 1, 2008... The Chicago Police Department announced this week that residents of the city turned in more than 6,800 guns on Saturday in exchange for MasterCard prepaid gift cards. Chicago offered residents $100 gift cards in exchange for turning in guns and...

VENDOR PLANTS TREES TO COUNTER CARD-BASED CARBON EMISSIONS.
August 1, 2008... Givex Corp., a Toronto-based gift card and customer-loyalty company, has signed an agreement with Tree Canada, a nonprofit organization that encourages Canadians to plant and care for trees. Under the agreement, Givex will plant trees to...

BRIEFS.
August 1, 2008... Hypercom Corp. announced today the Saudi Arabian Money Agency has given Saudi Payments Network certification for the vendor's Optimum T4210 payment terminal. OnePay, an independent sales organization and merchant services provider, has...

VISA U.S. CREDIT CARD VOLUME RISES 7%; DEBIT INCREASES 16%.
August 1, 2008... Visa Inc. says its U.S. credit cardholders initiated 2.17 billion transactions during the fiscal second-quarter ended March 31, up 7.4% from 2.02 billion during the same period a year ago. Sales on those transactions totaled $195 billion, up...

MASTERCARD VOLUME REMAINS FLAT IN U.S. BUT RISES WORLDWIDE.
August 1, 2008... During the second quarter ended June 30, holders of MasterCard-branded credit and charge cards in the United States initiated 1.59 billion purchases, up slightly from 1.58 billion during the same period a year ago. Sales on those transactions...

TSYS SAYS Q2 EARNINGS DOWN 4%; CITES SPIN-OFF COSTS.(Financial report)
August 1, 2008... Total System Services Inc., or TSYS, is reporting net income of $63.1 million for the second quarter ended June 30, down 4% compared with $65.7 million for the same period last year. Electronic-payment processing services revenue for the second...

ALTERNATIVE PAYMENTS? NEVER HEARD OF THEM, CONSUMERS SAY.
August 1, 2008... More than 20 alternative online-payment services sprang into existence in the past few years, but with the exception of PayPal Inc., consumer awareness and use of the services remains weak, new survey data suggest. According to a CardBeat...

METAVANTE HELPS LAUNCH PRODUCT TO RESCHEDULE CAR PAYMENTS.(Metavante Technologies Inc. )(National Payment Network Inc.,)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Metavante Technologies Inc. announced yesterday it has created CustomPay for National Payment Network Inc., an El Segundo, Calif.-based company that creates loan acceleration products for auto companies. The product enables consumers to...

RECRUITING AGENTS THAT FIT COMPANY GOALS CAN CUT ISO TURNOVER.(Financial report)
August 1, 2008... Independent sales organizations can increase revenue and decrease turnover costs by recruiting agents that fit company goals and strategies, says Curt Hensley, president and CEO of CSH Consulting Inc., a Phoenix-based executive-recruitment...

GLOBAL PAYMENTS AND HSBC EXPAND THEIR PRESENCE IN PHILIPPINES.(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Global Payments Inc., an Atlanta-based payments processor, said Wednesday it will provide processing services to merchants in the Philippines under an expansion of the its joint venture with United Kingdom-based financial institution HSBC. The...

BRIEFS.
August 1, 2008... Alliance Data Systems Corp. today announced an agreement with Beall's Department Stores Inc. to provide private-label credit card services to more than 85 retail locations in Florida and the retailer's Web site. (c) 2008 CardLine and...

HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES 'CREDIT CARDHOLDERS' BILL OF RIGHTS'.
August 8, 2008... The U.S. House Financial Services Committee yesterday approved the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights by a vote of 39-27, moving the bill closer to a vote in the House. The legislation would end credit card practices some lawmakers deem...

LARGEST DEBT BUYERS PRIMARILY PURCHASE CREDIT CARD ACCOUNTS.
August 8, 2008... The 15 largest debt buyers last year purchased a combined face value estimated between $25.1 billion and $37.7 billion in delinquent credit card accounts, or 60% to 90% of total debt purchases of $41.9 billion, according to a survey by CardLine...

SOME INSTITUTIONS SEEK ISO-FREE MERCHANT RELATIONSHIPS.(independent sales organizations)(Brief article)
August 8, 2008... Some financial institutions are seeking to reclaim acquiring revenue from independent sales organizations by providing merchant services bundled with financial products, according to a Mercator Advisory Group report. By offering merchant...

DECLINING USE OF CHECKS DECREASES DELUXE NET INCOME 8%:.(Financial report)
August 8, 2008... Deluxe Corp. yesterday reported net income of $32.6 million in the second quarter ended June 30, down 9% from $36 million during the same quarter last year. The St. Paul, Minn.-based company, best known for custom printing of business and...

SIMON PROPERTY OFFERS OLYMPIC-THEMED GIFT CARDS.
August 8, 2008... Simon Property Group Inc. has begun to offer Visa-branded Olympic-themed gift cards at 185 of its malls around the country, the shopping center management company announced yesterday. Simon is selling the cards in denominations of $20 to $500...

EURONET'S ATM EXPANSION FUELS 31% REVENUE GROWTH.(Financial report)
August 8, 2008... Leawood, Kan.-based processor Euronet Worldwide Inc., which operates in 42 countries, is attributing its increased revenue for the second quarter to the expansion of its ATM network. Its electronic funds transfer processing segment ended June...

PAYPAL LAUNCHES PREPAID CARD IN THE UK.
August 8, 2008... PayPal UK, a division of San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal Inc., has begun offering a reloadable prepaid Visa card called the PayPal Top-Up Card for consumers who do not have credit or debit cards. The card enables consumers to spend funds in their...

BRIEFS.
August 8, 2008... Electronic Payment Exchange has appointed John Coleman director of bank alliances. Plainfield, N.J.-based Charge Anywhere LLC and Everett, Wash.-based Intermec Inc. announced today merchants can use Charge Anywhere mobile point-of-sale...

MOODY'S: CARD CHARGE-OFF RATES HEADING FOR NEW HIGHS.
August 8, 2008... Credit card charge-off rates are on track to surpass historic highs of about 7% of total loans outstanding, according to a recent Moody's Investors Service Inc. report. The authors of the report, which relies on Moody's most-recent credit...

HSBC USA REPORTS $174 MILLION SECOND-QUARTER LOSS.(Financial report)
August 8, 2008... HSBC USA Inc. today reported a net loss of $174 million for the second quarter ended June 30. The card issuer had net income of $290 million in the same three months of 2007. Fee income from the bank's credit card business increased 6.6%, to...

COMBINED ATM MAKERS COULD DICTATE HIGHER PRICES TO ISOS.
August 8, 2008... Nautilus Hyosung Inc.'s pending purchase of Triton Systems of Delaware Inc. (CardLine, 8/1) would give the combined companies enough market share to dictate prices to ATM independent sales organizations, contends Bill Dunn, vice president of...

NACHA EXTENDS DEADLINE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTION CODE.
August 8, 2008... NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based electronic payments association that manages the U.S. automated clearinghouse network, has extended the deadline for financial institutions to begin using a new standard entry class code for ACH transactions that...

CANADA POST PLANS TO INSTALL 7,000 VERIFONE TERMINALS.
August 8, 2008... VeriFone Holdings Inc. today announced that Canada Post, the Canadian government's postal system, is installing more than 7,000 VeriFone MX870 multimedia payment systems. Installation, which VeriFone says has begun, will take more than two...

SEASTONE WINS PATENT FOR GIFT CARD HOLDER.
August 8, 2008... Seastone LC says the U.S. government has granted the Provo, Utah-based gift card packaging company a patent for a plastic tray designed to carry a gift card in a card holder or box. Seastone has sold 25 million packages that retailers will...

INDIAN BANK ISSUES ITS FIRST DEBIT CARD IN CANADA, REPORT SAYS.
August 8, 2008... State Bank of India reportedly has begun issuing its first debit card in Canada. Bank officials offered no immediate comment about the report from India-based The Economic Times, which says the State Bank of India-Canada, a subsidiary, operates...

BRIEFS.
August 8, 2008... TNB Card Services says former Citigroup executive Mitch Raymond has joined the company as senior vice president of product development for TNB's debit and credit card processing services. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. has...

11 INDICTED IN CONNECTION WITH TJX BREACH, OTHER CRIMES.
August 8, 2008... Authorities have indicted 11 individuals for stealing and selling payment card data from TJX Cos. Inc. and other major retailers, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today. In Boston, a grand jury indicted Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez,...

FED'S PROPOSED CARD RULES ATTRACT ITS MOST PUBLIC COMMENTS EVER.
August 8, 2008... The Federal Reserve Board received more comments on proposed rules changes for the credit card industry than it has received on any other issue. The approximately 56,000 public comments received by yesterday's deadline far exceeded the previous...

DEBT BUYER BUYS ITS LARGEST-EVER AMOUNT OF CHARGE-OFF DEBT.
August 8, 2008... Debt buyer Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. spent a record $65.3 million in the second quarter ended June 30 to buy charged-off consumer-debt portfolios with a face value of $1.9 billion. By comparison, the company spent $37.6 million to purchase...

HEARTLAND PROCESSING VOLUME, INTERCHANGE COSTS INCREASE.
August 8, 2008... Sales from Heartland Payment Systems Inc.'s card-processing business totaled $17.1 billion during the second quarter, which ended June 30, up 28.6% from $13.3 billion during the same period last year. The company did not report the number of...

DEBT BUYER ENCORE CAPITAL REPORTS GAINS.(Encore Capital Group Inc.)(Financial report)(Brief article)
August 8, 2008... Encore Capital Group, a debt buyer that purchases and collects delinquent credit cards, reported broad second-quarter gains, including increases in cash collections, debt purchasing, total revenue and net income. Encore invested $52.5 million...

UK RETAILER LAUNCHES GIFT CARDS WITH POSTILION SOFTWARE.
August 8, 2008... Marks and Spencer PLC, a London-based retailer, announced this week it has begun offering gift cards using software from Postilion, a division of the S1 Corp. based in Norcross, Ga. Marks and Spencer has 643 stores in the United Kingdom and 258...

2.1 BILLION MOBILE USERS MAY BUY DIGITAL GOODS BY PHONE IN 2013.(Brief article)
August 8, 2008... More than 2 billion mobile-phone subscribers will purchase digital goods by phone by 2013, according to a report from United Kingdom-based Juniper Research Ltd. Juniper expects mobile-phone users to make at least two payment transactions per...

BRIEFS.
August 8, 2008... Merchant processor Encore Payment Systems is using Vasco Data Security International Inc.'s two-factor authentication software to secure the network connection the company uses to retrieve such data as merchant and business partners' contact...

SECRET SERVICE ARRESTS ONE OF ITS OWN IN TJX INVESTIGATION.
August 8, 2008... When federal grand juries in Boston, New York and San Diego yesterday indicted 11 individuals for allegedly stealing 40 million debit and credit card numbers from TJX Cos. Inc., eight other major U.S. retailers and a restaurant chain (CardLine,...

NAUTILUS DEAL PUTS TRITON INTO STRONGER HANDS, ISO SAYS.
August 8, 2008... Competitors and independent sales organizations are expressing mixed feelings about Nautilus Hyosung Inc.'s pending purchase of Triton Systems of Delaware Inc. (CardLine, 8/1). ISOs buy ATMs from both companies, and Nautilus Hyosung ownership...

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL URGES NEW CARD INDUSTRY PRACTICES.
August 8, 2008... The New York Times today exhorted the Federal Reserve Board to adopt its proposed new rules for the credit card industry in an editorial titled "Listen to the 56,000." The editorial noted a "clear message" to regulators from the tens of...

HSBC FINANCE REPORTS Q2 SECOND-QUARTER LOSS OF $1.7 BILLION.(Financial report)(Brief article)
August 8, 2008... HSBC Finance Corp. this week reported a net loss from continuing operations before taxes of $1.7 billion for the second quarter ended June 30. The card issuer had net income of $293 million in the same three months of 2007. HSBC Finance Corp....

AIRLINE SAYS CALL-CENTER EMPLOYEE MISUSED CUSTOMERS' CARDS.
August 8, 2008... Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are trying to notify about 1,500 customers that a former call-center employee may have used their payment cards fraudulently. Alaska Air Group Inc., which owns the two airlines, did not name the former employee...

PAYBYCASH PREPAID GAME CARD AVAILABLE IN 7-ELEVEN STORES.
August 8, 2008... PayByCash, a subsidiary of PlaySpan Inc., announced today that consumers can purchase its Ultimate Game Card, a prepaid card for playing online, multiplayer games, at 5,600 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores in the United States. 7-Eleven is...

PREPAID FAILS TO MEET ANALYST'S EXPECTATIONS IN EUROPE.
August 8, 2008... An industry analyst is reducing his growth projections for prepaid cards in Europe because the market is taking longer to grow than he expected. Chris Jones, a senior consultant with United Kingdom-based PSE Consulting, says he has revised a...

BRIEFS.
August 8, 2008... Rion Needs, chief operating officer at debt buyer Asset Acceptance Capital Corp., will become president and CEO effective next Jan. 1. GiftCardResuce.com LLC yesterday announced the launch of its Web site, which enables consumers to...

FAIR ISAAC TO KEEP AUTHORIZED CARD ACCOUNT USERS IN FICO 08.
August 8, 2008... Fair Isaac Corp. this month reversed its plan to eliminate authorized secondary users of credit card accounts users from its newest credit-scoring model, and the decision will delay the rollout of FICO 08 by at least a few months. The...

TEXAS OFFICIAL SUES DEBT COLLECTOR FOR HARASSING CONSUMERS.
August 8, 2008... Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott yesterday filed a lawsuit against Dallas-based collection agency Anderson, Crenshaw & Associates LLC for allegedly harassing consumers and sending deceptive collections letters. The collection agency...

SOME ISOS LIABLE FOR RETURNED ACH TRANSACTIONS:.
August 8, 2008... The risk of fraudulent transactions involving the automated clearinghouse network is low, and the likelihood independent sales organizations will be liable for such transactions typically is lower, according to industry observers. Yet...

CITI AND GREEN DOT SET TO OFFER RELOADABLE PREPAID CARDS.
August 8, 2008... Citigroup Inc. and Green Dot Corp. announced today the signing of agreement to offer prepaid gift and reloadable cards to consumers. New York-based Citi intends to issue the cards with either a MasterCard or Visa logo, and Green Dot, which is...

MEXICAN QUICK-SERVICE CHAIN ACCEPTING MASTERCARD PAYPASS.
August 8, 2008... Taco Bueno, a Farmers Branch, Texas-based chain of 180 quick-service Mexican restaurants, now accepts MasterCard PayPass in most of its locations, Taco Bueno Restaurants LP and MasterCard Worldwide announced today. Taco Bueno is accepting...

PAYONEER ATTRACTS $8 MILLION INVESTMENT BY CARMEL VENTURES:.
August 8, 2008... Israeli venture capital firm Carmel Ventures has made an $8 million investment in Payoneer Inc., a provider of prepaid MasterCards. Payoneer plans to use the funds to improve the compliance and customer-identification tools it offers its...

PROCESSORS USUALLY DECLINE TO COLLECT TERMINATION FEES.
August 8, 2008... Contracts between payment processors and merchants usually include cancellation and termination fees, but processors rarely collect them, observers say. "Most of the time, if a company goes out of business, we're really not going to add insult...

BRIEFS.
August 8, 2008... Logan's Roadhouse Inc. announced yesterday it will offer a free entree with the purchase of another entree when they bring in unused gift cards from now-defunct Benningan's and Steal & Ale restaurants. CitiBank's Citi Cards group and...

REVOLVING CREDIT RISES TO $968 BILLION IN JUNE.(Brief article)
August 15, 2008... U.S. revolving credit, 98% of which is credit card debt, rose in June to $968.4 billion, according to a Federal Reserve G.19 report released yesterday. The month's revolving credit was up 0.57% from $962.9 billion in May. Total seasonally...

MOST CONSUMERS DO NOT PAY OVERDRAFT FEES, BANKERS GROUP SAYS.
August 15, 2008... Eight out of 10 consumers did not pay overdraft fees in the past year, according to survey results released by the American Bankers Association today. Of the 20% of 1,000 consumers surveyed last month who paid an overdraft fee, 52% said that...

ANALYST: PAYMENTS INDUSTRY REVISITS RISK AS ECONOMY WEAKENS.
August 15, 2008... Credit-risk models are changing, and a FICO score of 720 does not generate the same sense of security in the payments industry that it did a year ago, says Brian Riley, research director for the bankcard practice at Needham, Mass.-based...

CONSUMER SPENDING DECLINING WITH HOME VALUES, SURVEY FINDS.
August 15, 2008... A record number of consumers in July rated the economy as poor and said their personal finances were getting worse, according to a survey released this week by Discover Financial Services. The Discover U.S. Spending Monitor, a monthly index of...