Cardline articles from December 2008

Cardline archives from December 2008

KOREAN ATM COMPANY WAITS FOR DOJ TO APPROVE ACQUISITION.
December 5, 2008... U.S. Department of Justice attorneys still have not signed off on a deal allowing South Korea-based ATM manufacturer Nautilus Hyosung Inc. to purchase competitor Triton Systems of Delaware Inc. Nautilus Hyosung and Dover Corp., Triton's New...

ILL. ATTORNEY GENERAL REMINDS CONSUMERS OF NEW GIFT CARD LAW.
December 5, 2008... Some states are scrutinizing the gift card business this holiday season. The Illinois Attorney General's office said in a statement released yesterday that consumers should read the fine print on gift cards to make sure that they know the...

CREDIT MANAGER'S INDEX FALLS TO HISTORIC LOW IN NOVEMBER?
December 5, 2008... The seasonally adjusted Credit Manager's Index for November fell 2.6 points from October to a record low 42.2, according to a report by the National Association of Credit Management. The index, a gauge of economic factors affecting credit and...

COCARD-PIPELINE DATA DEAL OFF.
December 5, 2008... Pipeline Data Inc. has dropped its plan to acquire CoCard Marketing Group LLC for $79.5 million. In a Nov. 18 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the Quincy, Mass.-based payments processor says it canceled the deal because it was...

CONTINUED CONSOLIDATION OF ATM ISOS LIKELY, OBSERVER SAYS.
December 5, 2008... Further consolidation among ATM independent sales organizations likely will occur in 2009, according to Gil B. Luria, vice president of research and transaction processors with Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc., a Los Angeles-based...

MARYLAND PAYS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS WITH PREPAID CARDS.
December 5, 2008... All new recipients of unemployment-insurance benefits in Maryland will receive automatic payments through prepaid cards, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation announced today. Eliminating paper checks, postage costs, staff...

FREE TERMINALS MAY HARM LONG-TERM MERCHANT RELATIONSHIPS.(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Free-terminal programs have the potential to harm long-term merchant relationships if merchant-level salespeople do not fully disclose any additional fees associated with the promotions, says Wayne Koniac, president of American Money Systems, a...

BRIEF.
December 5, 2008... Capital One Financial Corp. is launching a new No Hassle Rewards Card that offers double miles for each dollar spent after reaching $1,000 in spending for the month and one mile per dollar spent on all other purchases, the company announced...

CORPORATE CARD ISSUERS LACK COMPREHENSIVE RISK TOOLS, REPORT CONTENDS.
December 5, 2008... Though credit card issuers generally deal with one borrower responsible for a consumer or small-business card account, corporate-lending relationships tend to be more complicated. For starters, corporations have more-sophisticated financial...

TOP ISSUERS SLASH CREDIT LINES TO MITIGATE RISK.
December 5, 2008... Tightening credit lines at the top five card issuers could cut the overall credit available to U.S. consumers by up to 45%, or as much as $2 trillion, over the next 18 months, reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. Meredith...

ISSUERS BANK ON REWARDS TO HELP RIDE OUT TOUGH TIMES.
December 5, 2008... Credit card issuers are developing more rewards offers to try to retain existing customers and attract new ones, a move one observer contends falls short of what is needed to ride out the current economic crisis and regulatory pressures....

TALF HELPS BUT DOES NOT SOLVE ALL ISSUER WOES, ANALYSTS SAY.
December 5, 2008... The new Term Asset Backed Loan Facility the U.S. Federal Reserve and U.S. Department of the Treasury announced yesterday is a good step toward unfreezing issuance of new credit card loans, but it does not address all the uncertainties issuers...

ISOS, PROCESSORS SEEN AS CHIEF SELLERS OF NEW PCI SERVICE.(independent sales organizations)(payment card industry)(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Independent sales organizations and payment processors will be the only sales outlets for SimplyPCI.com, a Web site information-technology company Mindteck launched this week to help smaller merchants become compliant with the Payment Card...

RETAILERS FORM GIFT CARD SELLERS ASSOCIATION.
December 5, 2008... Nine large retailers, including Amazon.com Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Subway, which is owned by franchisees and operated by Doctor's Associates Inc., have become the founding members of the Retail Gift Card Association. The association plans to...

ISO CHARITY BRAND TOUTS SUCCESS.
December 5, 2008... Independent sales organization Money Movers of America Inc. says its Process Pink processing-services brand that benefits breast cancer research will donate more than $50,000 next year to the National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc. Money Movers...

TSYS, UNIONPAY JOINT VENTURE LANDS CHINESE PROCESSING DEAL.(joint venture between Total Systems Services Inc. and UnionPay Data Services Co. Ltd.)(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Total Systems Services Inc., a Columbus, Ga.-based processor known as TSYS, said Monday its joint venture in China has signed a credit card-processing deal with China Postal Savings Bank, which recently launched a credit card program. TSYS...

BRIEFS.
December 5, 2008... IStream Imaging Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based payments-management technology company, has changed its name to iStream Financial Services Inc. Qualified security assessor RSM McGladrey has certified eCommLink Inc. as compliant with version...

ROSY CREDIT CARD FORECAST FOR 2009?: 'ONLY A RECESSION'...(influence of recession on consumer spending, unemployment and business environment)(Report)(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... In times like these, an optimistic outlook for credit card issuers in 2009 means only having to contend with the normal difficulties of a recession: lower consumer spending, higher unemployment, and higher delinquencies and charge-offs of...

...BUT WORST-CASE COULD BE EVEN TOUGHER YEAR FOR ISSUERS.(credit card industry in 2009)(Report)
December 5, 2008... A "perfect storm" of unfavorable events could affect the credit card industry in 2009, according to a new report by Mercator Advisory Group LLC. A confluence of worst-case events is unlikely to happen but is not impossible, Ken Paterson,...

CHASE TAKES WAMU CARD PROCESSING IN-HOUSE.
December 5, 2008... JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning to take in-house the processing for Washington Mutual Inc.'s consumer card portfolio, according to a report in American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. Total System Services Inc., known as TSYS, which...

ATMS EMERGE FROM BANK MERGERS AS LEADING PLAYERS.
December 5, 2008... The financial crisis has helped to thrust ATMs into a leading role for financial institutions to introduce banking services to new customers, according to a report released this week by Mercator Advisory Group Inc., a Maynard, Mass.-based...

MOBILE BANKING FOR BUSINESSES OFFERS OPPORTUNITY FOR REVENUE.
December 5, 2008... Banks could earn revenue by offering mobile-banking services to small businesses, according to an Aite Group report. Small businesses have adopted online banking and use it to check balances, transfer funds and pay bills-all functions that...

INEFFICIENT ISOS AT RISK, TARGETS FOR ACQUISITION.(independent sales organizations)(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... A recession-like economy increases the risk to independent sales organizations lacking money and a sound business plan, and it could make them good candidates for acquisition, Marcelo Paladini, CEO of Cynergy Data LLC, a New York-based ISO,...

ONLINE FRAUD ATTEMPTS INCREASED 40% ON BLACK FRIDAY.
December 5, 2008... Fraudsters increased attacks on online retailers the day after Thanksgiving by 40% over last year, reports Retail Decisions Plc, a United Kingdom-based payment card issuer and provider of payment-processing and fraud-prevention services. "Forty...

INDIANA PLANNED PARENTHOOD OFFERING GIFT CERTIFICATES.(Planned Parenthood of Indiana)(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Planned Parenthood of Indiana, a nonprofit organization focusing on reproductive health care, is offering gift certificates for its health care services, the organization announced last week. The Indianapolis-based group is selling the gift...

BRIEFS.
December 5, 2008... Citibank's ThankYou Rewards Network has added select items on Amazon.com as a new option for members to redeem points. Togo's Eateries Inc., a chain of franchisee-owned sandwich shops based in San Jose, Calif., has begun offering a...

DISCOVER CEO ASKS LEADERS TO PROJECT HAPPIER MESSAGES.
December 5, 2008... David Nelms, CEO of Discover Financial Services, is asking business, media and government leaders to be more positive as the nation works its way out of an economic recession. "It seems to me that people are almost falling over themselves to...

VISA TEAMS WITH MCDONALD'S ON FINANCIAL-LITERACY EFFORT.
December 5, 2008... Visa Inc. and McDonald's USA today announced what the two companies are billing as the nation's largest-ever employer-based financial education effort. More than 500,000 McDonald's employees at its 14,000 U.S. restaurants will receive the...

PAYMENTS SERVICE THAT TIES INTO ONLINE BANKING ADDS FIVE MERCHANTS.
December 5, 2008... Five merchants, including Improvement Direct, Sweetwater Sound, DiscountDance, OnlineCarStereo.com, and Stacks and Stacks, have signed up for eBillme's payment service, which enables consumers to pay for online goods directly from their...

CPNI OFFERS ENHANCED MOBILE-BANKING SERVICES.(contract between CPNI Inc. and financial institutions )(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... CPNI Inc., a Toronto, Canada-based software company, will offer the latest version of its mobile-payments and mobile-banking software to financial institutions that includes an ASP model for core processors, the company announced Monday. The...

START-UP OFFERS PREPAID CARD FOR CHECK CASHERS.
December 5, 2008... Prepaid Ventures Ltd., a start-up prepaid card provider based in Scarsdale, N.Y., has begun offering a prepaid card called NexisCard that check cashing companies can sell to customers to earn income from direct deposits to the card accounts,...

PAYMENTS BUSINESS PART OF INTUIT'S SMALL-BUSINESS EFFORT.
December 5, 2008... Intuit Inc., the company that produces QuickBooks accounting software, is reorganizing its small-business products to become part of a new unit called the Small Business Ecosystem division, the company announced Wednesday. Mountain View,...

UK'S BARCLAYCARD SAYS IT HIT CONTACTLESS CARD GOAL.
December 5, 2008... United Kingdom-based Barclaycard says it has issued 1 million contactless cards in the UK, a goal the financial institution set earlier this year. In February, the issuer's parent, Barclays PLC, bought the Goldfish brand from Riverwoods,...

CONSUMERS SAY OPEN-LOOP GIFT CARDS HELP STICK TO BUDGETS.
December 5, 2008... Eighty percent of consumers believe open-loop gift cards make it easier to stick to their holiday budgets, suggest the results of a Network Branded Prepaid Card Association survey. The Montvale, N.J.-based trade group, which represents...

BRIEFS.
December 5, 2008... Capital One Financial Corp. today announced it will acquire Chevy Chase Bank for $520 million. Cubis Financial Ltd., a Las Vegas-based private-label closed-loop credit card provider, has promoted Phil Huston to CEO. He previously was vice...

FREE-TERMINAL PROGRAMS MAY HURT SALES AGENTS' REVENUE.(Financial report)(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Merchant-level salespeople for independent sales organizations can earn less revenue when selling contracts with free-terminal programs than when selling leases for equipment, David McMackin, president of AmericaOne Merchant Services, a San...

PULSE EFT NETWORK PROMOTES NEW WEBSITE.
December 5, 2008... Though debit cards have become a popular payment method for many U.S. consumers, misconceptions about debit card security have prompted electronic funds transfer network Pulse to create a Web site that explains in depth how debit works....

ONLINE PIN-DEBIT PILOTS SUITED FOR INTERNATIONAL USE, ANALYST SAYS.(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Online PIN-debit pilots by two United State-based electronic funds transfer networks may find more success in countries that are debit-oriented, according to one analyst. One pilot, involving Accel/Exchange and vendor Acculynk Inc., enables...

BRIEFS.(contract between Commidea and Trustwave)(TransFirst Holdings Inc. appointed Greg Leos )(Brief article)
December 5, 2008... Commidea, a United Kingdom-based point-of-sale technology company, says it will use data security compliance-validation services from Trustwave, a Chicago-based security vendor, for its retailers....Greg Leos has joined payment-processor...

GIFT CARD PURCHASES DOWN DURING BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND.
December 5, 2008... Gift card purchases were down this past weekend compared with the same weekend last year, suggest the results of a survey the National Retail Federation commissioned. Asked about their shopping for the weekend after Thanksgiving, 18.7% of...

DELINQUENCY RATES PROJECTED TO RISE IN 2009.(Report)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Credit card loan delinquency rates will remain steady for the remainder of the year, according to TransUnion LLC's Trend Data database. The ratio of credit card borrowers 90 days or more delinquent on at least one of their credit cards was...

HOLIDAY SHOPPERS EXPECT TO SPEND 7.3% LESS THAN LAST YEAR.(Report)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Holiday shoppers this year expect to spend on average $831 on gifts, a 7.3% decrease from the average $896 shoppers spent on gifts during the 2007 holiday season, according to a Discover Card survey data released today. Fifty-five percent of...

REVOLVING CREDIT RELATIVELY UNCHANGED IN OCTOBER.(Report)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... U.S. revolving credit, 98% of which is credit card debt, fell slightly to $976.1 billion in October from $976.3 billion the previous month, according to a Federal Reserve G.19 report on consumer credit released Friday. Total seasonally adjusted...

FINANCIAL CRISIS SPURS SPAMMER ACTIVITY.
December 12, 2008... Fraudsters attempting to get consumers to reveal sensitive online-account data increased the sophistication of their attacks in 2008, according to the MessageLabs Intelligence 2008 Security Report released last week. MessageLabs is a unit of...

MOST MERCHANTS DO NOT STORE CARD-SECURITY CODE, SECURITY FIRM SAYS.(Report)(Brief article)(Statistical data)
December 12, 2008... The majority of U.S. and Canadian merchants do not store credit and debit card security codes, investigators with Trustwave, a technology-security company, note in a recent report. The Chicago-based company's report includes investigations...

TOWNS CONSIDER LOCAL CURRENCIES FOR PAYMENTS.
December 12, 2008... Several communities in the United States have begun printing their own currencies as a way to encourage consumers to use the notes to pay for goods and services at local businesses. Places such as Ithaca, N.Y., and the southern Berkshires...

GLOBAL PAYMENTS SIGNS UP FOUR U.S. CASINOS.
December 12, 2008... Four U.S. casinos have agreed to use some or all of VIP LightSpeed's suite of cash-access services from Global Payments Inc. The Las Vegas-based company announced the deals late last month with Emerald Princess, Spirit Mountain Casino, Jackpot...

BRIEFS.
December 12, 2008... Chicago-based Harris Bank has renewed its membership in the NYCE Network and named NYCE as primary provider of ATM and PIN-debit access for Harris customers, NYCE Payments Network LLC, a Metavante Corp. company, announced today. Stored...

NFC SLOW TO ENABLE MOBILE PAYMENTS; OTHER METHODS BETTER SUITED.(near field communication)(Report)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Near Field Communication technology will be unable to offer viable, large-scale mobile-payment capabilities for at least six years because the multiple organizations involved have been slow to determine how to share the expenses and revenue,...

SERVICE CAN BE AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENTIATOR FOR ISSUERS.
December 12, 2008... The more credit cards a consumer has, the more important rewards become a factor influencing card choice, according to an Aite Group report. For example, among consumers polled recently who have six to nine cards, 53% cited rewards as an...

WELLS FARGO UNVEILS NEW DEBT PAY-DOWN SERVICES.
December 12, 2008... Wells Fargo & Co. today announced a package of credit products and spend-management tools designed to allay consumers' anxiety about their rising debts caused by the current economic crisis. The Wells Fargo Debt Pay Down Solution for the first...

CREDIT UNION GIVES AWAY $50 BILLS TO PROMOTE ATM.
December 12, 2008... At a time when companies are laying off workers and slashing bonuses, Industrial Credit Union in Bellingham, Wash., is playing Santa. To promote its newest branch in the Bellingham suburb of Barkley Village, the credit union temporarily has...

PHOENIX HOPES ADD-ONS LIFT ITS CHECK-CASHING SERVICE.(Phoenix Check Cashing Inc.)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Phoenix Check Cashing Inc. has added prepaid cards and bill-payment capabilities to its payments offerings to try to spur more use of its biometric check-cashing service, according to a report in American Banker, a CardLine sister publication....

NCR PILOTS MOBILE CHECK-IN WITH DELTA AIR LINES.
December 12, 2008... NCR Corp., one of two leading companies that sell self check-in kiosks to airports around the world, has been testing a technology that enables passengers to check in for flights using their cellular telephones. The test, which also involves...

ARCHWAY DOUBLES GIFT CARD DISTRIBUTION IN 2008.
December 12, 2008... Archway Marketing Services Inc. expects to have shipped 450 million gift cards during 2008, more than double the 220 million it shipped in 2007, the company announced today. The company distributes both open- and closed-loop cards to card...

UK CONSUMERS SPENT ABOUT $480 MILLION DURING MEGA MONDAY.
December 12, 2008... Internet retail trade association IMRG says United Kingdom consumers spent A*323.6 million (US$480 million or 370.9 million euros) yesterday, known as Mega Monday in the UK. The day is similar to Cyber Monday, or the first Monday after the...

BRIEFS.
December 12, 2008... Tasq Technology Inc., a point-of-sale equipment distributor, has started selling Hypercom Corp.'s Optimum T4205 POS terminal in Canada. I2c Inc., a prepaid card-processing company based in Redwood City, Calif., has hired James Riggsbee as...

BARCLAYS UNVEILS $495-A-YEAR BLACK CARD.(Barclaycard US)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Barclaycard US this month chose what might be the nadir of the economic crisis to unveil the new Black Card, a Visa-branded card made with carbon graphite that carries a $495 annual fee. The Barclaycard Black Card provides 24-hour concierge...

CHECKFREE CUSTOMERS BRIEFLY DIRECTED TO FRAUDULENT WEB SITE.
December 12, 2008... Some customers of CheckFree Corp. may have downloaded malicious software, or malware, to their computers on the morning of Dec. 2. Instead of accessing the company's online bill-payment service, the customers were redirected to a fraudulent Web...

BANKS REAPING THE BENEFITS OF OVERDRAFT FEES.
December 12, 2008... Newly released survey data by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reveal most banks automatically enroll customers into overdraft programs that impose a fee. In 2006, the small sample of banks surveyed earned $1.97 billion in overdraft-related...

FDIC ORDERS DELAWARE BANK TO CLOSE LENDING UNIT.
December 12, 2008... First Bank of Delaware has agreed to overhaul its consumer-lending unit, which regulators say engages in unsafe banking practices, according a report in American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued...

MERCHANTS TO LOSE $4 BILLION TO ONLINE FRAUDSTERS IN 2008.
December 12, 2008... Online merchants in the United States and Canada will lose $4 billion in fraud this year, suggest the results of a survey online-payment and security company CyberSource Corp. released today. That figure is an 8.1% increase compared with the...

ISO SAYS MERCHANTS SWAYED BY POS SYSTEM.
December 12, 2008... United Bank Card Inc. says it has sold hundreds of its Harbortouch integrated point-of-sale systems, which the independent sales organization introduced in June. Besides containing a magnetic card swipe, the personal computer-based system...

CARD BILLS TOPS IN E-PAYMENT.
December 12, 2008... Consumers are more likely to pay credit card bills online than other types of bills, reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. Santa Clara, Calif.-based payment-software provider Billeo Inc. released the report Monday. The report...

FIRST DATA SIGNS ATM DEAL WITH CALIFORNIA BANK.
December 12, 2008... First Data Corp. has agreed to offer ATM-management services to Fremont (Calif.) Bank, including debit card processing, hardware and software maintenance, and ATM cash replenishment, according to a report in American Banker, a CardLine sister...

BRIEFS.
December 12, 2008... MasterCard Worldwide today announced promotions with Southwest Airlines and Starwood Hotels & Resorts that enable cardholders to enter to win free trips to the NBA All-Star game in Phoenix on Feb. 15. Cardholders must book travel plans with...

U.S. HOUSEHOLDS REDUCE DEBTS FOR FIRST TIME ON RECORD.
December 12, 2008... U.S. households reacted to declining home values, a plunging stock market and the loss of more than $2.8 trillion in collective net wealth by paying down their debts for the first time on record, since 1952, the Federal Reserve reported today....

ANALYST: CREDIT CRISIS MAY BE OVERBLOWN.
December 12, 2008... Media headlines and some policymakers' assumptions surrounding the national credit crisis may be incorrect, a study released today by Celent LLC suggests. In "Flawed Assumptions About the Credit Crisis, a Critical Examination of U.S....

WEB DOMAIN-NAME REGISTRARS NEED TIGHTER SECURITY: ANALYST.
December 12, 2008... The temporary redirection of some CheckFree Corp. customers from legitimate CheckFree Web sites to a fraudulent site on Dec. 2 suggests domain-name registrars are a weak security link in online commerce and financial services, says a Javelin...

FOR AMEX, COBRAND DEAL IS WORTH THE $1B INVESTMENT.
December 12, 2008... By plunking down $1 billion to keep and expand its cobranding contract with Delta Air Lines Inc., American Express Co. is following through on a promise to continue making strategic investments despite funding and credit challenges, reports...

CONSUMER BANKCARD DEBT UP 6% OVER LAST YEAR.
December 12, 2008... Average bankcard borrower debt in the United States was $5,710 for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, an increase of 1.6% from $5,621 in the previous quarter and up 6% compared with $5,387 during the third quarter of last year, according to...

DISCOVER REPORT: POOR ECONOMY REDUCED SPENDING.
December 12, 2008... A Discover Financial Services Inc. report suggests concerns over the economy drove down consumers' spending in November, reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. The Riverwoods, Ill.-based credit card company's monthly Spending...

WINCOR NIXDORF FISCAL 2008 NET SALES RISE 8%.(Wincor Nixdorf AG)(Financial report)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Germany-based Wincor Nixdorf AG, the world's second-largest ATM manufacturer based on 2007 worldwide shipments, on Tuesday reported net sales of 2.32 billion euros (US$2.99 billion) for the fiscal year ended 30 Sept., up 7.9% from 2.15 billion...

SURVEY: HOLIDAY SHOPPERS WILL SPEND LESS, USE CASH.(Report)(Brief article)
December 12, 2008... Consumers plan to spend less on holiday shopping this year, and nearly three-quarters of shoppers plan to pay for their purchases with cash or savings, suggest the results of a survey TransUnion LLC's Truecredit.com service released this week....

BRIEFS.
December 12, 2008... Bank of America Corp. announced that Bruce Hammonds will retire as the president of its credit card business at yearend. Ric Struthers, BofA consumer credit risk executive, will succeed Hammonds, the company says. Smart Payment Solutions,...

IPAY ADDS MULTICURRENCY SERVICE FOR U.S. ONLINE MERCHANTS.
December 12, 2008... Payment and data processor Planet Payment Inc. has added an online multiple-currency payment function to its iPay e-commerce payment gateway. Through the service, card-not-present merchants based in the United States can display prices and...

FANDANGO OFFERS CUSTOMIZABLE GIFT CARDS.
December 12, 2008... Fandango Inc., a Los-Angeles-based seller of movie tickets over the Internet, announced Thursday it has begun offering Fandango Bucks gift cards on its Web site. The company previously sold only electronic gift certificates via e-mail, but it...

REMEMBER FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES DURING DOWNTURN: ANALYST.
December 12, 2008... Layoffs on Wall Street and in the banking and payments industries remind Brian Riley, research director at TowerGroup, a U.S.-based independent research firm owned by MasterCard Advisors, of an old saw by former President Ronald Reagan. "Reagan...

BRIEFS.
December 12, 2008... Processor Global Payments Inc. has signed agreements with the cruise ship Emerald Princess, Spirit Mountain Casino, Jackpot Junction Casino and Eastside Cannery Hotel & Casino to provide them its VIP LightSpeed suite of cash-access products and...

BANKRUPTCY FILINGS JUMP AMID ECONOMIC SLUMP.
December 12, 2008... U.S. bankruptcy filings are nearing the 1 million mark this year, suggest data compiled by Automated Access to Court Electronic Records. Based on average monthly bankruptcy filings thus far this year, the provider of U.S. bankruptcy data to...

CONGRESSMAN QUERIES ISSUERS ON CARD-INTEREST RATES.
December 19, 2008... U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, this week demanded an explanation from the nation's top credit card issuers about why...

ANALYSTS SAY VISA EFFORT SHOWS PROGRESS FOR MOBILE BANKING.
December 19, 2008... Though the Visa Mobile for Android application notably lacks payment capabilities, it shows that Visa has both a long-term vision and a plan to make the mobile phone a widely used banking device, analysts note in American Banker, a CardLine...

ONLINE MERCHANTS CHALLENGING MORE CHARGE-BACKS.
December 19, 2008... Online merchants are contesting more charge-backs this year than in 2007, suggest the findings of a recent survey by CyberSource Corp., a Mountain View, Calif.-based online-payment company. Results from the CyberSource 2008 Online Fraud Survey...

RETAIL CREDIT CARD CHARGE-OFFS TO INCREASE, FITCH SAYS.
December 19, 2008... Retail credit card charge-offs are poised to surge in the coming months as more borrowers fall delinquent, according to Fitch Ratings' Retail Credit Card Index results released last week. With consumers scaling back purchases and lenders...