Cardline articles from December 2007

Cardline archives from December 2007

TJX ANNOUNCES SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT WITH VISA AND FIFTH THIRD.
December 7, 2007... TJX Cos. announced today a settlement agreement with Visa Inc. and Fifth Third Bancorp, which is the acquirer for TJX stores in the United States and Canada, to fund up to $40.9 million pretax in breach-related alternative recovery payments for...

JUDGE DENIES BANKS CLASS STATUS IN SUIT AGAINST TJX.
December 7, 2007... A federal judge has denied a group of New England bankers associations class certification in a lawsuit against TJX Cos. for card-reissuance costs and fraud losses resulting from the payment-data breach TJX revealed in January (CardLine, 1/19)....

ALLIANCE DATA DENIES BLACKSTONE DEAL REDO...
December 7, 2007... Alliance Data Systems Corp., a Dallas-based transaction processor, says no renegotiations are under way with Blackstone Capital Partners V LP, an investment firm that is offering $81.75 per share to buy Alliance Data in a $7.8 billion deal....

...AND NABS 7-ELEVEN PROCESSING DEAL.
December 7, 2007... Dallas-based convenience-store operator 7-Eleven Inc. has started using Alliance Data Systems Corp. for payment card processing at more than 5,500 U.S. 7-Eleven locations, Alliance Data announced yesterday. Citgo, a fuel-services company,...

TSYS REVISES 2008 EARNINGS GUIDANCE AND 2007 ESTIMATES.
December 7, 2007... Total System Services Inc., or TSYS, announced today it expects the company's 2007 net income to decline 4% from $249 million in 2006, to $239 million. The Columbus, Ga.-based payments processor previously estimated its net income would be flat...

PIPELINE BUYING COCARD, MERCHANT SERVICES AND TENDERCARD'S PARENT COMPANY.(Pipeline Data Inc. acquires Innovative Resource Alliance)(Brief article)
December 7, 2007... Payments processor Pipeline Data Inc. says it is buying Innovative Resource Alliance, the parent of prepaid card company TenderCard, and merchant-services provider Merchant Services Network. Falmouth, Mass.-based TenderCard has more than 12,000...

SAGE TESTING SERVICE THAT SENDS LEADS DIRECTLY TO AGENTS.
December 7, 2007... Sage Payment Solutions is testing a service that sends sales leads directly to its sales agents so they can pitch the company's card-processing services. Sage Payment Solutions is a division of Sage Software, the North America arm of United...

BRIEFS.
December 7, 2007... Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America yesterday announced it is offering a Visa credit card with Middlebury, Vt.-based Brighter Planet, a provider of environmentally conscious products and services. For every dollar spent on the BofA Brighter...

SHARE PRICE DROPS AS VERIFONE PLANS TO RESTATE EARNINGS.
December 7, 2007... Shares of VeriFone Holdings Inc. plunged today after the San Jose, Calif.-based point-of-sale terminal maker announced it would restate its financial results for the first three quarters of fiscal 2007, which ended Oct. 31. In a news release,...

BERGERON SELLS VERIFONE SHARES AHEAD OF ANNOUNCEMENT.(VeriFone Holdings Inc.)(Brief article)
December 7, 2007... Douglas G. Bergeron, CEO and chairman of VeriFone Holdings Inc., sold 43,300 shares of VeriFone stock last week for between $44.70 and $46.43 each in an automatic trading plan, according to company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange...

DISCOVER TAKES WRITE-DOWN ON GOLDFISH, PLANS $1 BILLION STOCK BUYBACK.
December 7, 2007... Discover Financial Services today announced it expects to take a $422 million write-off during the fourth quarter ended Nov. 30 related to its troubled Goldfish credit card business in the United Kingdom. Discover says the noncash "impairment"...

MAJORITY OF MOBILE NETWORKS WANT PER-TRANSACTION PAYMENT REVENUE, SURVEY FINDS.
December 7, 2007... Mobile operators want the new revenue that mobile payments and mobile banking could provide, and they expect to generate that revenue on a fee-per-transaction basis, according to a report released today by Boston-based Aite Group LLC. In...

TRITON CUTS JOBS AS EARNINGS FALL.
December 7, 2007... Triton Systems Inc., an off-premise ATM manufacturer, last week laid off an undisclosed number of workers as part of a restructuring. Leon Majors, president of Phoenix ESP Payments Research Group, a Maryland-based research and consulting firm...

MASTERCARD ANNOUNCES TRAVEL CARD LAUNCH.
December 7, 2007... MasterCard Worldwide announced today the launch of a prepaid, reloadable travel card. Security Savings Bank of Las Vegas is issuing the card, which will be sold through Airlines Reporting Corp.'s network of 20,000 U.S. travel agent locations....

CREDIT UNION 24 ADDS ALLPOINT ATMS TO ITS SURCHARGE-FREE NETWORK.
December 7, 2007... Credit Union 24, a credit union-owned electronic funds transfer, announced today that Allpoint's network of 32,000 surcharge-free ATMs is joining Credit Union 24's surcharge-free ATM program, called CU Here. Cardholders of Credit Union 24's...

BRIEFS.
December 7, 2007... Minneapolis-based Fargo Electronics Inc. announced today it is selling a high-definition digital card printer to banks, credit unions and retailers that want to instantly issue debit, credit or prepaid cards....The Bancorp Inc., based in...

SENATE HEARING PUTS INTEREST-RATE HIKES ON THE HOT SEAT.
December 7, 2007... The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today continued its probe of credit card industry fee practices, this time with the focus on interest rates. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the subcommittee, said in opening...

DOUBLE ENTRIES TO BLAME FOR VERIFONE FINANCIAL SNAFU.(VeriFone Holdings Inc.)
December 7, 2007... Double entries into VeriFone Holdings Inc.'s inventory accounting system are why the company is restating the value of its inventories for the first three quarters of fiscal 2007, says Douglas G. Bergeron, chairman and CEO of the San Jose,...

MICROS SYSTEMS SAYS HEARTLAND LAWSUIT IS WITHOUT MERIT.
December 7, 2007... Micros Systems Inc., a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Heartland Payment Systems, disputes allegations of unlawful competition. Micros, a Columbia, Md.-based provider of point-of-sale systems, says it provides a combination of products and...

STUDY: ONLINE BILL PAYERS ARE BETTER CUSTOMERS FOR BANKS.
December 7, 2007... Customers who receive and pay bills online are more loyal to and profitable for their banks than are other customers, says a study by SunTrust Banks Inc. and CheckFree Corp., a Norcross, Ga.-based financial-services provider. The study analyzed...

MINT MONEY-MANAGEMENT SITE ADDS ATM-FEE-TRACKING FEATURE.
December 7, 2007... Mint.com, an online money-management Web site for consumers, has added ATM-fee tracking as a feature to provide more information to users about banking fees. The Web site automatically detects a user's ATM fees and categorizes them separately...

DISCOVER LAUNCHES 'VIRTUAL' GIFT CARD.
December 7, 2007... Discover Financial Services today announced the launch of a "virtual" prepaid gift card usable only online and by telephone at merchants that accept Discover cards. Consumers may buy the eGift Card only through Discover's gift card Web site, in...

FISERV COMPLETES CHECKFREE PURCHASE.
December 7, 2007... Fiserv Inc. announced today it has completed its $4.4 billion purchase of CheckFree Corp., giving Fiserv software to run Internet banking services. "For people who pay bills online, in most cases they are using CheckFree's capabilities at their...

BRIEFS.
December 7, 2007... Operation Ensuring Christmas is giving $100 gift cards to approximately 100 children of U.S. military personnel killed overseas.... Springbok Services Inc. has hired Brad Fauss as senior vice president and general counsel. Before joining...

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS PROMISE CREDIT CARD CRACKDOWNS.
December 7, 2007... Two Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, are railing against card-industry practices while campaigning this week in Iowa. Obama is advocating a Credit Card Bill of Rights to crack down on card...

VERIFONE FACES LAWSUIT OVER MANGLED FINANCIAL RESULTS.
December 7, 2007... A San Francisco law firm says it filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday against VeriFone Holdings Inc., alleging that a financial-reporting snafu by the San Jose, Calif.-based point-of-sale terminal maker violated the Securities Exchange Act of...

FRAUDSTERS REPLACING POS DEVICES WITH SUBSTITUTES THAT SKIM DATA.
December 7, 2007... Thieves are removing point-of-sale PIN-entry-devices from stores and replacing them with modified versions designed to skim account data and personal identification numbers, according to a Visa Inc. data security alert issued Nov. 19. The...

CARD COMPANIES NEAR SETTLEMENT ON CURRENCY-CONVERSION FEE CLASS-ACTION SUIT.
December 7, 2007... A $336 million federal class-action lawsuit against Visa Inc., MasterCard Worldwide and Diners Club for allegedly conspiring over a 10-year period to set and hide currency-conversion fees is nearing resolution, the plaintiffs' attorneys said...

CO-OP FINANCIAL BRINGS FRAUD MONITORING IN-HOUSE.
December 7, 2007... Co-op Financial Services, the Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based credit-union service organization, has taken fraud monitoring in-house to provide personalized service to client credit unions' cardholders. "We're able to provide a different focus,"...

INDIAN MOBILE-PAYMENTS COMPANY OPENS U.S. OFFICE.(PayMate)(Brief article)
December 7, 2007... India-based mobile-payments company PayMate says it has opened an office in Sunnyvale, Calif., to gain business from workers sending funds home and from unbanked U.S. residents. PayMate named Dhurv Singh vice president of the Americas to...

CANADA'S AEROPLAN ACQUIRES UK LOYALTY MARKETER.(Aeroplan Income Fund acquires Loyalty Management Group)(Brief article)
December 7, 2007... Aeroplan Income Fund, a Canadian loyalty-marketing company, announced Monday the acquisition of Loyalty Management Group, which owns and operates the Nectar loyalty program in the United Kingdom, for $710 million. Aeroplan expects the agreement...

BRIEFS.
December 7, 2007... Hypercom Corp. has appointed Connie Festa vice president of sales for HBNet, the payment-terminal maker's high-security network.... Bill-payment provider TIO Networks Corp. announced it is certified as compliant with the Payment Card Industry...

VERIFONE BECOMES A LITIGATION TARGET.
December 7, 2007... A second law firm says it will file a class-action lawsuit against VeriFone Holdings Inc. Johnson Bottini LLP today expects to file suit against VeriFone Holdings Inc., Frank A. Bottini, a lawyer with the San Diego-based law firm, tells...

METAVANTE CONSOLIDATES DISCOVER WITH OTHER CARD PROCESSING.
December 7, 2007... Discover Financial Services has entered into an agreement with Metavante Corp. that enables the Milwaukee-based processor to include Discover Network transactions in a multibrand merchant-processing service. Under the agreement, Metavante will...

SECURITYMETRICS OFFERS MERCHANTS WEB SITE PCI CERTIFICATION.(Website overview)
December 7, 2007... SecurityMetrics Inc. announced yesterday it is will certify compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for online merchants whose Web site servers pass a SecurityMetrics test. The PCI standard, governed by the Wakefield,...

CREDIT UNIONS GAIN SERVICES UNDER AGREEMENT BETWEEN FISERV EFT AND FEDCOMP.
December 7, 2007... Some credit unions are gaining access to a number of perks under a nonexclusive partnership agreement between Fiserv EFT, a business unit of Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv Inc., and FedComp Inc., which provides data-processing software and...

TARGET INTRODUCES BIODEGRADABLE GIFT CARDS.
December 7, 2007... Metabolix Inc., a chemicals company focused on creating environmentally friendly products, announced this week that Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has introduced gift cards made of Mirel plastic at all of its 1,600 stores. Cambridge,...

NFC MAY LIMIT DEMAND FOR CONTACTLESS CARDS, ANALYST SAYS.(Near Field Communication technology )(Brief article)
December 7, 2007... As the payment industry continues to test contactless Near Field Communication technology and pushes ever closer to large-scale commercial rollouts, an analyst wonders what effect the mobile-phone based technology will have on contactless chip...

DIEBOLD TO BUY ITS CENTRAL AMERICAN ATM DISTRIBUTORSHIP.
December 7, 2007... Diebold Inc. says it is buying a controlling interest in the Diebold distributorship of General Business Machines, which has been Diebold's ATM distributor in Central America for more than 15 years. Diebold would not disclose how much it plans...

BRIEFS.
December 7, 2007... CheckFree Corp., which is owned by processor Fiserv Inc., will distribute electronic bills to Allstate Corp. customers through more than 3,000 electronic billing and payments Web sites CheckFree powers, the companies announced today.... Fiserv...

CREDIT-UNION GROUP CALLS FOR MORE TIME TO CONSIDER TJX OFFER.
December 14, 2007... The Credit Union National Association, which represents about 90% of the 8,400 credit unions in the United States, says its members need more time to decide whether to accept a $41 million "alternative recovery offer" for costs related to the...

MERCHANTPORTFOLIOS.COM UNVEILS ONLINE MARKETPLACE.
December 14, 2007... MERCHANTPORTFOLIOS.COM UNVEILS ONLINE MARKETPLACE MerchantPortfolios.com, a Boston-based brokerage company, yesterday unveiled a Web site, www.merchantportolios.com, for buyers and sellers of merchant-processing portfolios, ATM portfolios,...

ANOTHER LAW FIRM TARGETS VERIFONE.
December 14, 2007... VeriFone Holdings Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, faces a third class-action lawsuit as Kahn Gauthier Swick LLC, a New Orleans-based law firm, announced today that it filed a complaint. Of the three suits, the one...

JAVELIN: P2P LENDING TO GROW AS A CARD-DEBT REDUCTION TOOL.
December 14, 2007... Demand for person-to-person lending services to pay off credit card debt may grow from $38 billion per year today to $159 billion a year by 2012, according to a report released Friday. To produce the report, Javelin Strategy & Research surveyed...

PLANET GROUP TO ACQUIRE OPTICARD.(Opticard Payment Services Inc. acquired Planet Group Inc.)(Brief article)
December 14, 2007... Opticard Payment Services Inc. expects to add to its gift and loyalty card client base and create more cross-selling opportunities once it is acquired on Jan. 1 by Planet Group Inc., a provider of information-technology consulting,...

RUSH OF CYBER MONDAY SHOPPERS SLOWS COSTCO WEB SITE.(Website overview)
December 14, 2007... Online shoppers experienced crawling, rush-hour traffic speeds on some retailers' Web sites on Cyber Monday, according to a Web site-monitoring firm. The Web site of membership warehouse club Costco grew increasingly slow from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m....

MICHIGAN HOUSE PASSES GIFT CARD RESTRICTIONS.
December 14, 2007... The Michigan House of Representatives recently passed three bills that prohibit retailers from issuing gift cards that expire before five years, charging service or inactivity fees, and altering the terms after a gift card has been issued. The...

BRIEFS.
December 14, 2007... Helsinki, Finland-based network-security products provider SSH Communications Security Corp. has joined the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council as a participating organization. Rob Tourt, vice president of network services at...

RECESSION RISKS PROMPT CARD-ISSUER DOWNGRADES.
December 14, 2007... Merrill Lynch analysts downgraded shares of American Express Co., Capital One Financial Corp. and Discover Financial Services to "sell" on Friday, saying they expect consumer spending to deteriorate and lead to a recession next year, reports...

CONSUMERS WORLDWIDE USING LESS CASH, SURVEY FINDS.
December 14, 2007... Consumers surveyed recently in 13 countries are using less cash for payments than they did five years ago, and they believe credit and debit card payments eventually will replace cash and checks, according to KRC Research, which conducted the...

BIGGEST ONLINE SHOPPING DAY IN HISTORY EXPECTED THIS WEEK.
December 14, 2007... Online holiday sales will hit a new record this year, and the peak likely will occur this week, says comScore, a Chicago-based company that measures digital traffic. The heaviest online shopping day in history was recorded on Thursday last...

N.J. ASSEMBLYMAN INTRODUCES ATM FEE-CAPPING LEGISLATION.
December 14, 2007... The New Jersey Legislature is considering a bill that would cap ATM-surcharge and foreign-ATM fees at $2 per transaction. Introduced Nov. 19 by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, the proposed legislation also includes fines of up to $1,000 per day for...

CHECKFREE ACQUISITIONS BRINGS FISERV NEW OPPORTUNITIES.
December 14, 2007... Fiserv Inc.'s purchase of CheckFree Corp. will open the door to new opportunities for CheckFree, the world's leader in electronic-bill payment, Pat Foy, president of Fiserv Card Services, tells CardLine sister publication ATM&Debit News....

UNITED WAY ANNOUNCES "PENNIES FOR CHANGE" PROGRAM.(United Way of America)(Brief article)
December 14, 2007... United Way of America has launched "Pennies for Change," which enables customers of participating financial institutions to automatically donate one penny for each credit or debit card transaction they make, according to the Alexandria,...

CANADA LEADS OTHER NATIONS IN SURVEY OF GOVERNMENT ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS.
December 14, 2007... The Canadian government does a better job than other governments do in using electronic payment systems, according to a survey sponsored by Visa Inc. The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted the "Government ePayments Adoption Ranking" study,...

BRIEFS.
December 14, 2007... Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has opened a new building in Jeffersonville, Ind., to house its customer-service and support functions.... Tamarac, Fla.-based City Furniture has signed a multiyear extension with GE Money to manage the store's...

TJX BLAMES MASTERCARD FOR SOME OF ISSUERS' BREACH COSTS.
December 14, 2007... Attorneys defending TJX Cos. Inc. say MasterCard Worldwide is partly to blame for costs that financial institutions incurred from TJX's massive card-data breach. Last week, lawyers for Framingham, Mass.-based TJX filed a motion in U.S. District...

TWO MORE LAW FIRMS FILE SUIT AGAINST VERIFONE OVER RESTATED FINANCIAL RESULTS.
December 14, 2007... Payment-terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc. faces two more lawsuits in connection with its Dec. 3 announcement that it will restate financial results because of accounting errors in the first three quarters of its 2007 fiscal year, which...

REPORT: CARD NETWORKS' B-TO-B RULES ARE SLOWING THE GROWTH OF PURCHASE CARDS.
December 14, 2007... Payment card networks' restrictive rules for corporate card purchases are standing in the way of "significant" growth opportunities in the $17.3 trillion business-to-business payments market, according to a new research report by Aite Group, a...

CO-OP EXPANDS SURCHARGE-FEE ATM DEAL WITH COSTCO.
December 14, 2007... Co-op Financial Services, a Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based credit-union service organization, yesterday announced that its member credit unions' 26 million credit-union members soon will have surcharge-free ATM access to machines in 341 Costco...

ABA TACKLES CREDIT CARD "MYTHS" IN CONGRESS.
December 14, 2007... The American Bankers Association is responding to several credit card bills being considered in Congress. The association is making its case against nine of what it calls "myths" surrounding credit cards, according to a Dec. 3 press release....

DEBIT PAYMENTS EXCEEDED CREDIT PAYMENTS IN 2006, STUDY SHOWS.
December 14, 2007... Debit card payments in 2006 exceeded credit card payments for the first time, according to a Federal Reserve study released Monday. Debit card payments rose 17.5% per year, to 25.3 billion in 2006 from 15.6 billion in 2003, while credit card...

CARDTRONICS' STOCK STUMBLES IN PUBLIC TRADING DEBUT.(revenue report)(Financial report)(Brief article)
December 14, 2007... Cardtronics Inc. went public this morning on the Nasdaq Global Market, but the company's share price quickly fell. By early afternoon, shares of the ATM independent sales organization were selling at $8.85, down 18% from the initial $10 asking...

BRIEFS.
December 14, 2007... The Federal Reserve today cut the federal funds rate to 4.25% and the discount rate to 4.75%....The Members Group says the 55 credit unions offering its Atira gift cards have sold about 15,000 of the cards, with an average load of $90, since...

CORRECTION.(Correction notice)
December 14, 2007... CardLine incorrectly spelled the name of the brokerage firm Stifel Nicolaus on today. CardLine regrets the error. (c) 2007 CardLine and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cardforum.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

HALF OF GLOBAL CONSUMERS LIKELY TO USE CONTACTLESS PAYMENT, SURVEY SHOWS.
December 14, 2007... Forty-nine percent of the world's consumers report they are likely to use a contactless card if their financial institution provides it, and 47% of that group cite convenience as the main reason, a KRC Research survey commissioned by MasterCard...

DIEBOLD SELLS 300 ATMS TO BB&T.
December 14, 2007... Diebold Inc. announced Tuesday the sale of 300 ATMs to BB&T Corp. The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based bank plans to use the machines to replace ATMs in its network of 2,100 machines, Mark Piper, BB&T ATM channel manager, tells CardLine sister...

AUTHORIZE.NET STORES CUSTOMER-PAYMENT INFORMATION FOR MERCHANTS.
December 14, 2007... Online merchants using a new product from Authorize.Net may worry less about fraud, according to the unit of Mountain View, Calif.-based CyberSource Corp. Merchants using the Customer Information Manager may store customer-payment information...

RETAILERS: ALTERNATIVE PAYMENTS BOOST CONSUMER SPENDING.
December 14, 2007... Conventional wisdom in the payments industry holds that the quest for lower transaction fees attracts merchants to alternative payments, which include prepaid cards, private-label cards, mobile payments, e-mail payment accounts such as PayPal,...

CARD SPENDING GREW 8.3% IN OCTOBER, FED REPORTS.(Brief article)
December 14, 2007... Consumer credit outstanding rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.25% in October, boosted by an 8.3% increase in borrowing on revolving accounts consisting primarily of credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Board's monthly...

HYPERCOM MOVING ITS HEADQUARTERS TO SCOTTSDALE.
December 14, 2007... Hypercom Corp., a point-of-sale terminal manufacturer, is relocating its corporate headquarters to Scottsdale, Ariz., from Phoenix during the first half of 2008, according to a company spokesperson. "We were looking to upgrade our facility, the...

GSI TO LAUNCH ONLINE STORES IN SIX COUNTRIES NEXT YEAR.
December 14, 2007... E-commerce service provider GSI Commerce Inc. last week announced a partnership with Casual Male Retail Group Inc., a Canton, Mass.-based big-and-tall men's clothing manufacturer, to design, develop and operate the online stores for both the...

BRIEFS.
December 14, 2007... Citigroup's board named Vikram Pandit CEO and a member of the board. The board also named Sir Win Bischoff, acting CEO since Nov. 4, chairman....First American Payment Systems LP, a Fort Worth, Texas-based acquirer, has signed a...

GE MIGHT CONSIDER SELLING ITS PRIVATE-LABEL CARD PORTFOLIO.
December 14, 2007... General Electric Corp. is looking for a strategic partner for its private-label card business, which the company may be willing to sell, Jeff Immelt, GE chairman and CEO, said during the company's annual performance review and business outlook...

CREDIT CARD EXPERIENCE FAILS TO 'WOW' CONSUMERS, REPORT SUGGESTS.
December 14, 2007... Credit card firms have a lot of room for improvement in the customer experience they deliver, according to a report by Forrester Research Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based research company. The 5,000 consumers Forrester surveyed online during the...

FTC AND SEVEN STATES SUE PAYMENTS COMPANY.
December 14, 2007... The Federal Trade Commission and seven states are suing a payments company that does business under several names, including Netchex Corp., Universal Payment Solutions, Check Recovery Systems, Nterglobal Payment Solutions and Subscriptions...

CAP ONE REPORTS RISE IN CARD DELINQUENCIES.
December 14, 2007... Capital One Financial Corp.'s credit card delinquencies of 30 days or longer during November totaled 4.78% of end-of-month total receivables, up 92 basis points from 3.86% during November 2006. The Capital One Master Trust released...

42% OF SURVEYED AMERICANS VIEW CARDS AS BARRIER TO SAVING.(Survey)
December 14, 2007... A little more than half of Americans surveyed last month said they cannot afford to save money or are saving inadequately. Among the factors that make saving difficult, 42% cited credit cards as a barrier, according to the Consumer Federation...

CREDIT INDEX FALLS FOR THIRD STRAIGHT MONTH.(Brief article)
December 14, 2007... The Credit Manager's Index, a gauge of economic factors affecting credit and collection professionals, slipped 0.7 points in November to a score of 53.1 from October's 53.8 score, according to the National Association of Credit Management....

EURONET CONFIRMS OFFER TO ACQUIRE MONEYGRAM INTERNATIONAL.(Euronet Worldwide Inc.)(Brief article)
December 14, 2007... Euronet Worldwide Inc. says it made a bid several weeks ago to acquire MoneyGram International for $1.65 billion in stock, but MoneyGram refused the offer. The Leawood, Kansas-based electronic-payments processor then sent a letter to MoneyGram...

BRIEFS.
December 14, 2007... Cleveland-based independent sales organization Electronic Merchant Systems has named Dan NeistadtCEO and president....InComm Inc.announced today it is offering gift cards for Barnes and Noble through some of the merchants in its...

STATES UNLIKELY TO CAP OR BAN ATM FEES, TRADE GROUP SAYS.
December 21, 2007... Lawmakers rarely pass state legislation that bans or caps ATM-surcharge and foreign-ATM fees because it harms state-chartered financial institutions, Mathew Street, deputy general counsel for state relations at the American Bankers Association,...

JUDGE BUMPS TJX CASE TO STATE COURT, BUT DOCUMENTS KEEP FLOWING IN.
December 21, 2007... U.S. District Judge William Young on Tuesday reaffirmed his November decision to deny class-action status to plaintiff banks in their lawsuit seeking to recover breach-related costs from TJX Cos. Inc. He also ruled that the case belongs in...

DECOUPLED DEBIT CARD PICKS UP GE MOTOR CLUB AS CONSUMER PERK.
December 21, 2007... Retailers using a decoupled debit card from National Payment Card LLC can offer consumers an additional perk of discounted membership in GE Motor Club, roadside-assistance that is part of Stamford, Conn.-based GE Money Partnership Group....