Cardline articles from January 2005

Cardline archives from January 2005

CONVENIENCE-STORE CHAIN WILL USE MASTERCARD'S PAYPASS.(Sheetz Inc., MasterCard International Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Sheetz Inc. announced today plans to accept MasterCard International's tap-and-go PayPass products at all 305 of its convenience stores beginning March 1. That makes the Altoona, PA-based company the second chain to embrace PayPass, following...

MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL SUES CAPITAL ONE.(Mike Hatch, Capital One F.S.B.)
January 7, 2005... Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch has filed a civil complaint against Capital One Financial Corp. subsidiaries Capital One Bank and Capital One F.S.B., charging that Capital One lies in its television advertising and its direct-mail...

PAYMENTS INDUSTRY PLEDGES MORE FINANCIAL HELP TO TSUNAMI VICTIMS.(PayPal Inc., MasterCard International Inc., VeriFone)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... The payments industry is expanding its assistance to victims of the tsunami that devastated South Asia on Dec. 26. PayPal Inc. is waiving all fees for donations to UNICEF's Tsunami Disaster Relief efforts by consumers using their PayPal...

TNB CARD SERVICES BUYS THREE CREDIT-UNION CARD PORTFOLIOS.(Rio Grande Credit Union of Albuquerque, 1st Community Federal Credit Union of San Angelo, Corps of Engineers Federal Credit Union in Fort Worth)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... TNB Card Services today announced that it purchased three clients' credit card portfolios and will operate the programs under its agent-bank service. The total number of accounts is 5,250. Rio Grande Credit Union of Albuquerque, NM; 1st...

MOST INDIANS USE CARDS TO PURCHASE CLOTHES.(survey of cardholders on the usage of their credit cards)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... In India, 44% of cardholders use their credit cards most often to purchase clothing, according to the results of a consumer lifestyle survey of the South Asia, Middle East, and Africa region released last week by MasterCard International....

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS FOR EQUITEX.(stock trading)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... The stock of Equitex Inc. quieted down Friday after trading of more than 6.3 million shares Thursday, way over the daily average of 47,000 shares (CardLine 12-30). An executive of the Englewood, CO-based firm told CardLine late Thursday he had...

ASIA PAY SIGNS AGREEMENT FOR CREATION OF CREDIT BUREAU IN BEIJING.(memorandum of understanding between Asia Payment Systems Inc. and Beijing Purple Stars Appraisal Co. Ltd.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Processor Asia Payment Systems Inc. today announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Beijing Purple Stars Appraisal Co. Ltd. to establish an international-standard credit bureau in Beijing. The memorandum of understanding will...

PAYPASS OFFERS ADVANTAGE OF BEING FAST, RETAILER SAYS.(Sheetz Inc.)
January 7, 2005... Motivation to be one of the first in the market spurred convenience chain Sheetz Inc. to choose MasterCard International's tap-and-go PayPass products, Rich Steckroth, Sheetz's manager for new business development, tells CardLine today....

CONSUMERS WHO PAY RECURRING BILLS ONLINE WITH CARDS WILL EARN REWARDS POINTS.(Yodlee Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Two of the top five credit card issuers will launch this month an online bill-payment service that allows consumers to pay with their credit cards and signature debit cards and earn reward points, an executive with Yodlee Inc. tells CardLine....

STUDY SAYS IT WILL TAKE SEVEN YEARS FOR SMART CARDS TO MAKE A DENT IN THE U.S. MARKET.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Celent Communications forecasts at least a seven-year wait for smart cards to make a significant dent in the United States payment card market. Celent analyst Ariana-Michelle Moore writes in a recent report that there are many factors...

CHARGEOFF RATE CONTINUES TO IMPROVE.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Credit quality for securitized pools of card receivables continued to improve in November, with the chargeoff rate falling to 6.11% of receivables from 6.76% a year earlier, according to Moody's Investors Service's Credit Card Credit Index...

SOVEREIGN BANK AND FIRST DATA RENEW MERCHANT-PROCESSING AGREEMENT.(Sovereign Bancorp Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Sovereign Bank and First Data Corp. yesterday announced that they have renewed their agreement for another five years to provide electronic payment-processing products and services for Sovereign's merchant customers in New England and the...

LIPMAN TERMINAL RECEIVES CLASS B CERTIFICATION.(Lipman Electronic Engineering)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Lipman Electronic Engineering Ltd. today announced that its Nurit 8100 multifunction point-of-sale terminal has received Class B PIN-entry security approval from Visa International for PIN debit and offline smart card transactions. Class B...

VERIFONE NAMES BOARD MEMBER.(Leslie G. Denend)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... VeriFone Inc. today announced that Leslie G. Denend joined the company's board of directors. Denend was president of Network Associates, CEO of Network General Corp., and CEO of Vitalink Communications Corp. He also was a partner with McKinsey...

MASTERCARD NABS ANOTHER DEBIT ISSUER FROM VISA.(contract between Washington Mutual Inc. and MasterCard International Inc.)
January 7, 2005... Washington Mutual, the nation's third-largest issuer of signature-based, or offline, debit cards, today announced it will convert its Visa check card portfolio to debit MasterCard. Bank of America and Wells Fargo are the two largest...

MASTERCARD TOUTS A SINGLE-BRAND DEBIT STRATEGY.(MasterCard International Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Under a process that MasterCard International began last September to simplify its debit message and brand advertising, U.S. issuers of the card association's Cirrus ATM and Maestro PIN-based point-of-sale debit cards no longer have to place...

VISA RELEASES 2004 ANNUAL REPORT, DETAILING LITIGATION EXPENSES.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Visa USA released to the public its fiscal 2004 annual report this week, reporting revenues of $2.4 billion on sales volume of $956.4 billion from 443 million Visa-branded cards in the U.S. Visa's fiscal 2004 ended on Sept. 30 last year....

GLOBAL PAYMENTS DISTRIBUTES MORE THAN 100,000 MAESTRO CARDS IN RUSSIA.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... A Czech Republic subsidiary of Global Payments Inc. distributed over 100,000 Maestro-branded credit cards in Russia in the last quarter, Paul Garcia, Global's chairman, president and CEO, tells CardLine. Muzo a.s., the Prague-based...

COMPUCREDIT AND ITS PARTNERS BUY SUBPRIME PORTFOLIO FROM BANKFIRST.(CompuCredit Corp., Merrill Lynch and Company Inc., BANKFIRST Corp.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... CompuCredit Corp., the Atlanta-based subprime card marketer, in partnership with a Merrill Lynch affiliate and an undisclosed partner, has acquired the $370 million subprime card portfolio of Sioux Falls, SD-based BankFirst Corp. The deal...

BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF NEBRASKA SIGNS CONTRACT WITH FIRST DATA.(Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska selected First Data Corp. to provide data-center services, both companies announced yesterday. Under the agreement's terms, First Data will provide technical infrastructure and support services in one of...

APACS MEMBERS WAIVE FEES FOR CARD DONATIONS MADE TO TSUNAMI VICTIMS.(Association for Payment Clearing Services)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... The Association for Payment Clearing Services, the trade association that represents United Kingdom credit and debit card issuers, announced yesterday that its members will waive transaction fees on donations made with cards to individual...

CHARGEOFFS ROSE IN OCTOBER AMONG PRIME CARD RECEIVABLES, BUT REMAIN LOWER THAN LAST YEAR.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... The performance of securitized pools of prime credit card receivables continued to improve during the November collections period, with the chargeoff rate dropping to 6.29% of receivables from 6.67% in the year-earlier period, according to the...

CHINA'S LARGEST BANK GIVES DIEBOLD ITS BIGGEST ORDER SO FAR IN THE COUNTRY.(contract between Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Diebold Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Diebold Inc., the North Canton, OH, ATM maker, today received its largest order to date in China for its Opteva ATM series as well as its Agilis ATM software. China's largest state-owned commercial bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of...

AMEX ROLLS OUT TWO SKYMILES BONUS OFFERS.(American Express Co.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... American Express Co. today announced two new bonus offers for holders of its Delta Air Lines SkyMiles cobranded card. AmEx's promotions coincide with today's launch by financially ailing Delta of a fare-cutting program that could reverberate...

MBNA DETAILS NEW GAME PLAN; ISSUER WILL ADVERTISE IN THE SUPER BOWL ...(MBNA Corp.)
January 7, 2005... MBNA Corp. will air its first ever-national television commercial Feb. 6 during the Super Bowl, the world's most-watched one-day television sports event, Mark Levitt, the issuer's senior executive vice president of brand management, tells...

AND VISA OPENS UP IN THE WAKE OF NEGATIVE PRESS REPORTS.(Visa U.S.A. Inc.'s annual report release)
January 7, 2005... Visa USA's decision this week to release its annual report to the public is the first time the association has systematically distributed the information beyond its membership. Visa has declined previously to provide the kind of financial...

ABA SAYS CARD DELINQUENCIES ARE STABLE, BUT CLOSED-END LOAN FIGURES GIVE PAUSE.(American Bankers Association)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... The American Bankers Association's new Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin released today shows stable credit card delinquencies for the third quarter, but closed-end loans ended a year-long run of improvements. That has ABA Chief Economist...

INDIAN BANK OVERTAKES CITIBANK AS INDIA'S TOP CREDIT CARD ISSUER.(ICICI Banking Corporation Ltd.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... India's ICICI Bank has dethroned Citibank as the country's largest credit card issuer, according to the 2004 Indian Payment Card Industry survey by Venture Infotek Global Pvt. Ltd., India's only consumer-payment processing company. Although...

VISA PUSHES CARDS FOR CROSS-BORDER REMITTANCE.(contract between Visa International and banking industry)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Visa Latin America and the Caribbean is promoting the use of its cards in Latin America to receive remittance payments sent from migrant workers residing in the U.S. and Spain. It has signed up 12 Latin American banks in seven countries for its...

UNITED KINGDOM LAUNCHES CHIP-AND-PIN TO PREVENT FRAUD.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... More than three-quarters of the United Kingdom's cardholders now have at least one chip- and-PIN card in their wallets and 40 chip-and-PIN transactions are taking place each second, according to APACS, a trade association for card issuers. More...

FIRST AMERICAN BUYS MERCHANT ACQUIRER.(acquisition of National Data Funding Corp. by First American Payment Systems L.P.)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... Merchant acquirer and card processor First American Payment Systems L.P. yesterday disclosed that it purchased substantially all of the assets of National Data Funding Corp., a merchant acquirer based in Chico, CA, for an undisclosed price...

MASTERCARD AND VISA WAIVE FEES FOR CARD DONATIONS MADE TO TSUNAMI VICTIMS.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2005... The card associations, Visa USA and MasterCard International, today announced that they will waive transaction fees for Americans who use their branded Visa and MasterCards to make charitable donations to organizations assisting victims of the...

A DOUBLE-DIGIT DIP FOR REVOLVING CREDIT...(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... The Federal Reserve released its preliminary consumer credit numbers for November this afternoon, and they show an 11% annualized decline in revolving credit ovember's big drop continued the up-and-down pattern in revolving credit growth rates...

BUT VISA USA SAYS 2004 HOLIDAY SALES VOLUME WAS UP.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Visa USA yesterday reported that spending on Visa-branded consumer and commercial payment cards during the entire 2004 holiday season from Nov. 1 through Jan. 2 was $219.4 billion. Sales volume during the peak holiday season from Nov. 26...

AND CUTTING DEBT HAS LOST OUT TO CUTTING THE FAT AS A TOP NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Reducing the debt burden has taken a backseat to reducing the fat burden as far as New Year's resolutions go, according to a survey released this morning by Cambridge Consumer Credit Index. Some 25% of those who responded to Cambridge's...

ISO UNITED BANK CARD OFFERS FREE PAYMENT TERMINALS TO NEW MERCHANT CLIENTS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... United Bank Card, a registered independent sales organization of Merrick Bank, started the new year by offering merchant clients a free payment terminal if the retailer agrees to have United Bank Card process its card transactions, Marc Kenyon,...

REPORTS PROGRESS IN PROCESSING CARD TRANSACTIONS.
January 14, 2005... Computer Sciences Corp. recently reported its CAMS II card and merchant computer system processed a simulated workload of 100 million active cardholder accounts representing 126 million cards. At its peak, CAMS II processed 1,500 transactions...

HSBC'S POWER OUTAGE IN THE U.K. SHORT CIRCUITS ATM WITHDRAWALS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... HSBC Bank's United Kingdom call center, Internet banking service, and its ATM and POS network suffered an outage which affected a large number of the bank's customers on Monday. "The widespread outage was due to a hardware failure," an HSBC...

PSCU ANNOUNCES CONTRACT EXTENSION AGREEMENTS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... PSCU Financial Services, the nation's largest credit-union service organization, today announced that three credit unions have signed contract extensions. They are - Pentagon Federal Credit Union of Alexandria, VA; Wings Financial FCU of Apple...

FED CHANGES MAKEUP OF THE CONSUMER ADVISORY COUNCIL.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... The Federal Reserve Board on Friday changed the makeup of its Consumer Advisory Council, promoting several advocates who may prove a burr under the card industry's saddle. The 30-member council meets three times a year to advise the Fed on its...

MASTERCARD AND VISA ALIGN DATA SECURITY RULES.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Visa USA and MasterCard International have adopted common data security rules for transaction processors and merchants that store cardholder data. The move, first reported in a CardLine Special Bulletin on Dec. 17, follows complaints about...

WESTERN UNION TAKES A 30% STAKE IN ITALIAN MONEY-TRANSFER FIRM.(Finint Srl)(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Processor First Data Corp.'s big Western Union Financial Services money-transfer subsidiary today announced that it has completed the purchase of a 30% equity interest in Finint Srl, one of Western Union's authorized agents in Italy. Terms of...

U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE TO RE-EXAMINE GRANTING OF CYBERSOURCE PATENT.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Retail Decisions plc, a card fraud-prevention company, said last week that it was happy to learn that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will re-examine the granting of a patent to competitor CyberSource Corp. that is the subject of a federal...

MASTERCARD WILL HELP FIGHT PHISHING SITES DESIGNED TO STEAL DONATIONS FOR TSUNAMI VICTIMS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... MasterCard International and NameProtect Inc., a digital-fraud protection company, said Friday that they are volunteering their services to help federal law-enforcement officials stop scam artists from stealing donations to tsunami relief...

CYOTA SURVEY; PHISHING E-MAILS ARE INCREASING.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Cyota Inc.'s second annual Financial Institution Online Fraud Survey, which was released today, found that 50% of consumers with bank accounts, some of whom bank online, have received at least one phishing e-mail compared with less than 25% in...

CHASE LAUNCHES CARD PROMOTION.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Chase Card Services, the card-issuing arm of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and BP plc, formerly known as British Petroleum, today announced a credit card promotion. Individuals who apply for and receive a Chase-issued cobranded BP Visa card will be...

VERIFONE FILES FOR AN IPO; COMPANY WILL USE MONEY TO PAY DOWN DEBT.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Payment terminal marketer VeriFone Holdings Inc. today reported it will hold an initial public offering for its shares. Prices for the offering have not been disclosed, but VeriFone wants to raise $230 million from the sale, according to its...

ANALYST: IT'S A GOOD TIME FOR VERIFONE TO GO PUBLIC.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... VeriFone Holdings Inc. announced its initial public offering today at a time that appears to be good for the international terminal marketer, Robert Dodd, a senior analyst with Memphis-based investment house Morgan Keegan & Co., tells CardLine....

RETAIL DECISIONS SIGNS CONTRACT TO PROVIDE FRAUD PROTECTION FOR FEDERATED DEPARTMENT STORES.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Retail Decisions Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Retail Decisions plc, has signed a two-year contract to provide online fraud protection for Federated Department Stores Inc., Jeff Foster, ReD's executive vice president, tells CardLine today. "The...

PEPPERCOIN, THE MICROPAYMENTS COMPANY, SIGNS A BIG CONTRACT WITH CHASE MERCHANT SERVICES.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Peppercoin Inc. yesterday announced an alliance with Chase Merchant Services LLC, the nation's largest merchant acquirer. Chase will market Peppercoin's Small Transaction Suite, software designed to process micropayments at the digital, mobile...

THAI BANK HIRES GEMPLUS FOR SMART CARD PROJECT.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Smart card vendor Gemplus International SA has received a consulting contract to help Bangkok Bank in Thailand convert to smart cards. The value of the contract was not disclosed. France-based Gemplus says its role is to plan the migration for...

CAPITAL ONE'S U.K. OPERATION IS REVIEWING ITS ADVERTISING BUSINESS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... The United Kingdom operation of card issuer Capital One Financial Corp. has called for a review of its U.K. advertising business, which is thought to be worth around PN16 million. Spokesperson Richard Holmes confirmed that the company has drawn...

E-COMMERCE TRACKER SAYS ONLINE RETAIL SPENDING GREW 26% IN 2004.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Reston, VA-based electronic-commerce research firm comScore Networks Inc. yesterday released a report that estimates retail online spending totaled $66.5 billion in 2004, up 26% from $52.9 billion in 2003. Online travel bookings grew by a like...

EFUNDS TO BUY CLEARCOMMERCE FOR $19.4 MILLION.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... EFunds Corp. will buy ClearCommerce Corp. for $19.4 million in a deal announced today by the two risk-management and card-processing firms. The agreement will allow the combined entity to offer a greater product mix to a similar customer...

STUDY VISA TAKES THE LEAD IN THE COMMERCIAL CARD MARKET.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Last year, Visa overtook American Express Co. as the nation's largest commercial card issuer, according to Packaged Facts, the publishing arm of MarketResearch.com Inc., a Rockville, MD, company that measures market trends. In its study titled,...

OCC SIDES WITH MASSACHUSETTS IN DISPUTE CONCERNING SIMON GIFT CARD.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has sided with Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly in the commonwealth's legal fight with Simon Property Group L.P. concerning the mall developer's gift cards. Reilly and attorneys general in...

ACTING COMPTROLLER BEATS THE DRUM AGAIN FOR BETTER DISCLOSURES.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Acting Comptroller of the Currency Julie L. Williams today reiterated that federal banking regulators want credit card issuers to improve their disclosures about card terms and pricing. Speaking before a meeting of Women in Housing Finance and...

VISA AND MASTERCARD CERTIFY PEPPERCOIN.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Peppercoin Inc. announced today that its software has been certified as meeting the security standards of Visa's Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) and MasterCard International's Site Data Protection (SDP) program. Waltham, MA-based...

CARD BONDS COULD REACH $68 BILLION THIS YEAR.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Issuance of securities backed by credit card receivables could reach $68 billion this year, up 30% over 2004 and matching 2003's issuance, Standard & Poor's said today. The majority of the 2005 issuance will come from refinancing of $70 billion...

DISCOVER AND PULSE COMPLETE MERGER.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Discover Financial Services and Pulse EFT Association today announced that they have completed their merger following approval by Pulse's financial-institution members. The merger joins Pulse and its 4,100 member banks, credit unions and...

J.P. MORGAN CHASE WILL CLOSE TAMPA CARD-SUPPORT FACILITY.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will close its Tampa, FL, credit card operations center in the fourth quarter, a spokesperson tells CardLine this morning. The closing will affect 1,900 workers, but J.P. Morgan will continue to employ locally 3,100...

VISA INTERNATIONAL NAMES CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Visa International has named Matthew A. Piasecki chief commercial officer, a new position at the Foster City, CA-based payments company. Piasecki, who began working Jan. 3, will have direct responsibility for Visa's global strategy, consumer...

CHINESE CARD VENDOR PLANS NASDAQ STOCK SALE.(Beijing-based Watchdata Technologies Ltd)(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... For the first time, one of China's fast-growing smart card vendors has announced plans to sell shares on a United States stock exchange. Beijing-based Watchdata Technologies Ltd. filed an application last month with the U.S. Securities and...

REPORT FORSEES FURTHER DECLINE IN RETAILER-RUN CARD PORTFOLIOS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Retailers will continue to exit the credit card business, predicts a new report from financial research firm TowerGroup Inc. The report, entitled "Private Label Credit Cards in the U.S. - A Market in Decline?" notes that recent shifts in the...

DODD PLANS TO REINTRODUCE BILL CALLING FOR MORE CREDIT CARD DISCLOSURE.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-CT, the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, plans to reintroduce in the 109th Congress a bill calling for more disclosure about penalty fees, risk-based pricing and other terms of cardholder...

ELEVEN PROCESSORS DELIVERED A 23% RETURN IN 2004.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... The stocks of 11 major electronic transaction processors delivered to their investors a return of 23.2% in 2004, Gary Prestopino, senior investment analyst and vice president at Barrington Research Associates Inc., reported recently. That...

CERTEGY KICKS OFF THE RED DUST OF GEORGIA, MOVES HQ TO FLORIDA.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... While J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is cutting back its card operations in Tampa, FL, the Tampa-St. Petersburg area got some good news from the card industry Wednesday when processor Certegy Inc. announced it has moved its corporate headquarters from...

FIRST DATA INTERNATIONAL PURCHASES ITALIAN BANK'S CARD-PROCESSING BUSINESS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... First Data Corp. Wednesday expanded further into the European market, announcing that it has purchased the card-processing unit of Italy's FinecoBank S.p.A., an online bank with 420,000 customers. Milan-based FinecoBank will continue to own and...

NOVA TO OFFER PAN-EUROPEAN ACQUIRING IN 2005.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Nova Information Systems, a major U.S. merchant acquirer that expanded aggressively in Europe in 2004, plans to make more strategic acquisitions and alliances on the continent this year and broaden the services it offers clients, Stuart Harvey,...

MBNA EXTENDS COMMERCIAL CARD PROCESSING AGREEMENT WITH TSYS.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2005... Total System Services Inc. yesterday announced that MBNA Corp., which has a seven-year commercial card processing agreement with TSYS, has extended it for another three years. The companies did not release the contract's financial details. In a...

ILLINOIS ATTORNEY GENERAL SUES TWO CARD COMPANIES FOR ALLEGEDLY PREYING ON HISPANICS.
January 21, 2005... Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has sued two credit card companies for allegedly preying on Hispanics with promises that turned out to be false. This is the second time in three months the firms have been sued by a state attorney...

CAPITAL ONE WILL DONATE STAFF AND PHONES FOR SATURDAY'S TSUNAMI RELIEF TELETHON.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Capital One Financial Corp. will provide call-center support for the two-hour Tsunami relief telethon Saturday. The McLean, VA-based issuer announced that over 3,000 of its staff have volunteered to man the phones at its call centers in...

HUNTINGTON BANCSHARES DROPS CHASE FOR MBNA.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Huntington Bancshares Inc. announced yesterday that it signed a long-term agent contract with MBNA Corp. to issue its credit cards. MBNA began issuing cards for Huntington Jan. 1, replacing Chase Manhattan Bank USA whose contract with...

VISA SURVEY CANADIANS AIM TO PAY OFF CHRISTMAS CARD BILLS IN FEBRUARY.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... A survey by Visa Canada claims that, after hitting the stores during the holiday season, 79% of Canadians plan to pay off their holiday shopping credit card bills by the end of February. "This refers to all the different card schemes," a Visa...

BANKRUPTCIES ROSE IN CANADA IN NOVEMBER.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Consumer bankruptcies in Canada rose 8% to 7,359 in November from 6,814 in November 2003, according to BankruptcyCanada.com. Year-to-date, consumer bankruptcies were up by 0.4%to 78,285 from 77,994 in the year-earlier period. Provinces showing...

FRAUD LOSSES INVOLVING DEBIT CARDS DROP DESPITE THE CARDS' GROWING POPULARITY.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Fraud losses involving debit cards appear to be decreasing, despite the increasing use of debit among consumers. But losses among the largest debit card issuers that handle most transaction volume are still problematic compared to losses among...

CHECKFREE IS PARTICIPATING IN HUNGARIAN PILOT INVOLVING ONLINE BILL PAYMENT.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... CheckFree Software, a unit of CheckFree Corp., is participating in a pilot in which residents of Hungary will be able to receive and pay their bills online, a CheckFree spokesperson tells CardLine today. CheckFree Software is working with...

CERTEGY HEADQUARTERS MOVE AFFECTS ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Fewer than 10 people will be moving from processor Certegy Inc.'s Alpharetta, GA, headquarters to the firm's new head office in St. Petersburg, FL, Mary Waggoner, head of investor relations, tells CardLine. Certegy announced yesterday that it...

TSYS WILL BUY VISA'S 50% STAKE IN VITAL PROCESSING.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) this afternoon announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase Visa USA's 50% stake in Vital Processing Services for an undisclosed price. Tempe, AZ-based Vital is the second-largest merchant processor in...

WALGREEN CO. CHANGES ITS MIND ABOUT AMERICAN EXPRESS.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Walgreen Co., the world's largest drugstore chain, has reversed itself, saying that it will continue to accept American Express Co. cards. In December, Walgreen, which is based in Deerfield, IL, announced that it would stop accepting AmEx cards...

GE CONSUMER FINANCE BUYS CANADIAN CARD PORTFOLIO.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... First Data Corp. has agreed to sell its small-business MasterCard portfolio in Canada to GE Consumer Finance. In addition, First Data says it will provide card-processing services for the portfolio, once it has been transferred from First Data...

CARD EARNINGS UP AT BANK OF AMERICA, U.S. BANCORP.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... The fourth-quarter and full 2004 earnings report season got underway in earnest today with Bank of America Corp. and U.S. Bancorp both reporting big increases in card-related profits. Charlotte, NC-based Bank of America, which acquired...

FAIR ISAAC ADDS CUSTOM COLLECTIONS SCORES.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Information analytics provider Fair Isaac Corp. announced last week it has added custom collections scores to its Triad customer portfolio management product. The scores allow for the ranking of accounts by the likelihood of a particular event,...

INGENICO AND IBM FORM AN ALLIANCE IN THE U.S.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2005... Ingenico, the world's largest provider of payment terminals, Sunday announced that it had formed a marketing partnership with IBM Corp. According to terms of the agreement, Ingenico will supply payment terminals and transaction acceptance...