Cardline articles from July 2008

Cardline archives from July 2008

MERCHANT GROUP LABELS NEW VISA GAS INTERCHANGE A 'STUNT' ...
July 4, 2008... Visa Inc. says its new interchange rate for fuel purchases will be cheaper for gas-station owners, but the National Association of Convenience Stores contends the new rate will not always mean lower fees. Merchant banks pay card issuers...

... WHILE CARD BRAND REDUCES FUEL TRANSACTION 'HOLD TIME'.
July 4, 2008... Visa Inc. also announced yesterday a new processing method the company says will speed the clearing of card transactions at fuel pumps. In October, Visa plans to launch what it calls Real-Time Clearing, which will process fuel transactions...

WITNESSES TELL SUBCOMMITTEE CARD ISSUERS EXPLOIT STUDENTS.
July 4, 2008... Credit card companies that deploy irresponsible and misleading tactics to sign up college-age consumers as cardholders should be reined in with legislation, said witnesses at a hearing held yesterday by the House Financial Services Subcommittee...

PCI TO MANDATE REVIEW OF WEB-FACING SOFTWARE.
July 4, 2008... A recommendation that merchants using Web applications, such as shopping-cart software, use a firewall and have all customized software reviewed for vulnerabilities becomes a Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council mandate on June 30....

STATE AUDITOR FINDS WEB SECURITY FLAWS AT ARIZONA UNIVERSITIES.
July 4, 2008... Investigators have found security flaws in the Web-based computer applications of Arizona's three public universities, according to a report released last Friday by the Arizona Office of the Auditor General. Web-based applications enable users...

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS WILL PAY FOR MOBILE SERVICES AT FIRST.
July 4, 2008... Financial institutions will pay for consumer mobile-payment services until they develop revenue-generating methods, panelists at SourceMedia's Mobile Commerce Summit in Las Vegas said Monday. "There's not a great likelihood financial...

PCI COUNCIL TO RELEASE DATABASE OF QUALIFIED SECURITY ASSESSORS.
July 4, 2008... The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council says that before the end of September it will launch a database of consultants registered as qualified security assessors, who help merchants determine weakness in their payment systems. The...

BRIEFS.
July 4, 2008... JPMorgan Chase & Co. has renewed its contract with the State of Colorado to use prepaid debit cards to distribute government-benefit payments to 127,000 households....Consulting firm Mercator Advisory Group Inc. has moved its headquarters from...

'NAIVE' COMPANY FAILS TO NOTIFY CUSTOMERS OF DATA BREACH.
July 4, 2008... Direct Marketing Services Inc. this month is belatedly contacting approximately 51,000 customers whose credit card account data were exposed last December when hackers broke into the computer systems that store customers' transaction data from...

PCI COUNCIL ADDS 2 TYPES OF PIN DEVICES TO SECURITY REQUIREMENTS.(Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council)(Brief article)
July 4, 2008... The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has added unattended payment terminals and hardware-security modules to its testing program for PIN-entry devices, the council announced today. Many such devices already are evaluated by the...

CHOCKSTONE AND RBS LYNK JOIN FORCES TO SELL LOYALTY PRODUCTS.
July 4, 2008... Chockstone Inc. says it has signed an agreement with RBS Lynk, the U.S. payment-processing subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, to sell loyalty services to RBS merchant-acquiring customers. The agreement calls for RBS to recommend...

GLOBAL PAYMENTS 'RIDES RAILS' OF HSBC TO NEW MARKETS.
July 4, 2008... A flexible processing platform and a global business partner have helped Global Payments Inc. expand overseas. The Atlanta-based transaction processor and United Kingdom-based HSBC Bank Plc announced earlier this month a joint venture to...

NETSPEND FOUNDERS START VENTURE CAPITAL FUND FOR UNBANKED.
July 4, 2008... Roy and Bertrand Sosa, brothers who founded prepaid card provider NetSpend Corp., have formed Mpower Venture LP, a venture-capital fund designed to invest in companies that help financially underserved consumers around the world. Mpower...

BANKS USING SPECIAL BAGS TO DEPOSIT FLOOD-DAMAGED CURRENCY.
July 4, 2008... Banks inundated by Iowa's floods have begun receiving special bags to deposit damaged and contaminated bank notes removed from ATMs and bank vaults, Annette Owens, assistant vice president of Cash Services at the Kansas City Federal Reserve...

TREASURY ASKS FLOOD VICTIMS TO ACCEPT BENEFITS ELECTRONICALLY.
July 4, 2008... The U.S. Treasury Department is recommending federal-benefits recipients in states affected by recent flooding to switch their means of accepting benefits funds to direct deposit from checks. The recommendation is intended to ensure benefits...

BRIEFS.
July 4, 2008... Electronic Payment Exchange has signed a multiyear payment-processing agreement with Pioneer Telephone, a long-distance service provider....Comdata Corp. has named Tracey Power senior vice president of human resources....National Capital...

THOUSANDS WILL RALLY FOR CUT IN INTERCHANGE, MERCHANT SAYS.
July 4, 2008... The lead plaintiff in a merchant class-action lawsuit challenging the interchange rate-setting policies of Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide expects thousands of consumers to attend a rally Thursday at a Chevron gas station in Irvine, Calif.,...

AD SPENDING UP FOR SOME IN PAYMENTS INDUSTRY DESPITE ECONOMY.
July 4, 2008... Payments industry businesses increased their ad spending during the first quarter despite the weak economy, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Of the top 10 spenders, six spent more in the first three months of this year than in the...

ANALYST CUTS BANKS' PRICE TARGETS AND EARNINGS ESTIMATES.
July 4, 2008... Credit deterioration, which began in the middle of 2007, likely worsened in the second quarter ended June 30 because charge-offs and nonperforming loans rose at some regional and national banks, according to Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst David...

VOICE-BASED PAYMENTS SERVICE DESIGNED FOR MOBILE MERCHANTS.
July 4, 2008... Planet Payment Inc., a Long Beach, N.Y.-based payment-services company, says it launched this week Payment BuyVoice, a service that enables merchants to complete payment card transactions using a telephone. The service relies on...

DISCOVER TO DOUBLE REWARDS FOR U.S. TROOPS THIS SUMMER.
July 4, 2008... Discover Financial Services is offering U.S. military personnel and their families double cash-back bonuses and double airline miles on purchases made with Discover cards this summer, the company announced today. The double rewards are limited...

HOUSE PANEL CLEARS THE WAY FOR BAN ON WEB GAMBLING.
July 4, 2008... The House Financial Services Committee last week rejected a bill that would delay a proposed regulation from the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Treasury Department that would ban Internet gambling, according to the American Banker, a...

GROUP TO PROMOTE ONLINE AUTHENTICATION AND PAYMENTS.
July 4, 2008... A group of major online and technology companies has established the Information Card Foundation to promote the development of Internet-enabled digital identities using what it calls information cards, which would be similar to electronic...

BRIEFS.
July 4, 2008... In response to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, Visa Inc. has changed a rule that prohibited financial institutions from allowing merchants to waive entry of a personal identification number for most debit transactions, according to...

VISA NO LONGER REQUIRES PIN NUMBER FOR SMALL TRANSACTIONS ...
July 4, 2008... Feeling the weight of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, Visa Inc. yesterday announced a change to an operating regulation that previously forced merchants to favor higher-interchange signature-debit purchases over lower-interchange...

...WHICH CLEARS THE WAY FOR MORE PIN-LESS DEBIT, OBSERVERS SAY.
July 4, 2008... Although the U.S. Department of Justice mentioned small-ticket and Internet purchases in a news release, Visa Inc.'s amended rule will contribute to growth of PIN-less debit for the payment of utility bills, such as electric, water and cellular...

TREASURY TOUTING PREPAID CARDS FOR BENEFITS IN 13 MORE STATES.
July 4, 2008... The U.S. Department of the Treasury is expanding promotion of its Direct Express prepaid debit card to 13 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., this month. The bureau began promoting the cards earlier this year and intends to...

FIVE FANS TO MEET THEIR MUSIC IDOLS IN MASTERCARD AD CAMPAIGN.
July 4, 2008... MasterCard Worldwide yesterday announced its "Roots of Rock" sweepstakes, which will allow five winning U.S. cardholders a chance to meet Jon Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton or Kenny Chesney where the artist got his start in music. The card brand built...

ALASKA AIRLINES GOES CASHLESS; SOUTHWEST POISED TO FOLLOW.
July 4, 2008... Alaska Airlines today became the nation's third airline to eliminate cash purchases on all of its flights. Beginning next month, the airline will accept only debit and credit cards for onboard purchases of meals, drinks and in-flight...

CARDTRONICS TO DEPLOY 25 ATMS IN TWO UNIVERSAL THEME PARKS.
July 4, 2008... Independent sales organization Cardtronics Inc. is teaming with GE Money to deploy ATMs inside the Universal Hollywood and Universal Orlando theme parks, the companies announced last week. The agreement represents Cardtronics' highest-profile...

3 INDICTED FOR USING CARD DATA TO STEAL $2 MILLION FROM CITI ATMS.
July 4, 2008... The United States Attorneys Office has indicted three Ukrainian nationals for allegedly stealing $2 million from Citibank cardholder accounts by withdrawing the money from Citibank ATMs. The indictment says Yuriy Rakushchynets, Ivan Biltse and...

BRIEFS.
July 4, 2008... Discover Financial Services has completed its acquisition of Diners Club International from Citigroup....TSYS Acquiring Solutions has approved ExaDigm Inc.'s XD1000 and XD2000/XD2100SP point-of-sale terminals for use on its network and will...

ISO INCOME MAY DECREASE IF REVOLUTIONCARD SUCCEEDS.(Financial report)
July 11, 2008... Independent sales organizations may experience decreased revenue if RevolutionCard, an upstart consumer credit card brand, succeeds in securing support from enough merchants and consumers to compete with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide using...

CAPITAL ONE CONTINUES DECOUPLED DEBIT TRIALS.
July 11, 2008... Nearly two months after Capital One Financial Corp. ended two decoupled-debit pilots at Sheetz Inc. and Ukrop's Super Markets Inc.(CardLine, 5/9), the McLean, Va.-based company is soliciting customers nationwide with a new offer. In the latest...

NETSPEND TEACHES KIDS, HIRES EXECS.
July 11, 2008... NetSpend Corp., an Austin, Texas-based prepaid card provider, is working with California Check Cashing Stores LLC to offer one-hour money-management classes to high school students in northern California. Based in Oakland, Calif., California...

POSTAL SERVICE CREDIT UNION OUTSOURCES MANAGEMENT OF 5 ATMS.
July 11, 2008... The U.S. Postal Service Federal Credit Union is outsourcing management of its five ATMs to Select-A-Branch, a King of Prussia, Pa.-based independent sales organization. "Our managers no longer are saddled with cash ordering or working on the...

SOME CARDHOLDERS WANT MOBILE MARKETING, BANKING.
July 11, 2008... Twenty-eight percent of consumers interested in receiving marketing messages from merchant brands on their mobile phones and other devices anticipate also checking their account balances using mobile devices in the next year, according to a...

DISCOVER BUILDS ANOTHER FOOTHOLD IN CHINA.
July 11, 2008... Discover Financial Services yesterday announced the opening of a new subsidiary, Discover Information Technology Ltd., in the People's Republic of China, to support Discover's data-analysis and modeling operations. The new operation in...

FRENCH CONSUMERS AND MERCHANTS EMBRACE NFC PAYMENTS.
July 11, 2008... French mobile operators and banks will extend their groundbreaking Near Field Communication mobile-payment trial through at least the end of the year, as results from the trial's first six months suggest both consumers and merchants like the...

BRIEFS.
July 11, 2008... Comdata Corp. has named Todd Joseph senior vice president of information technology....PaySimple has hired Sherri Hammons as vice president of engineering....Bank of America has named Ian O'Doherty as Europe Card Services Executive, replacing...

FRAUD COSTS THREE BANKS NEARLY $6 MILLION ...
July 11, 2008... Three Ukrainian nationals produced fraudulent debit cards to illegally withdraw nearly $6 million from Citibank N.A., Washington Mutual Inc. and First Bank of St. Louis, according to an FBI affidavit recently obtained by CardLine sister...

... BUT CARDTRONICS SAYS ITS ATMS ARE SECURE.
July 11, 2008... Cardtronics Inc. is defending the security of its ATMs following a recent breach of machines it owns housed in 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores. The breach has led to nearly $1 million in fraudulent withdrawals from ATMs throughout New York,...

EBAY, PAYPAL AND GMAIL TEAM TO FIGHT PHISHING.
July 11, 2008... EBay Inc. and PayPal Inc. today announced a partnership with Gmail, Google Inc.'s e-mail service, to reduce fraudulent e-mails and phishing attacks. With phishing, criminals attempt to steal consumer payment information by posing as legitimate...

GIFTCLIXX SIGNS DEAL WITH BLACKSTONE.(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... GiftClixx, a third-party gift card-distribution company founded in June, announced today its first agreement to distribute cards, with Miami-based Blackstone Calling Cards Inc. GiftClixx will help Blackstone negotiate with retailers the terms...

REVOLUTIONCARD FACES MULTIPLE HURDLES TO THRIVE.(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... RevolutionCard is unlikely to gain mass scale in the near future because the upstart credit card brand must overcome multiple hurdles, including gaining mass merchant and consumer acceptance, note industry observers. The challenge for fledgling...

NETSPEND RENEWS CONTRACT WITH ACE CASH EXPRESS.
July 11, 2008... NetSpend Corp., a prepaid debit card provider, has renewed its agreement with Ace Cash Express Inc., a check casher and payday lender, to distribute NetSpend prepaid cards for an additional seven years. Since 2002, when the agreement began, Ace...

VISA ANNOUNCES NEW SPECIFICATION FOR CONTACTLESS CARDS.
July 11, 2008... Visa Inc. last week announced it is moving to a new contactless card specification, Visa Contactless 2.0, that is based on the EMV standard used around the world to secure smart card transactions. "With this new specification, Visa contactless...

BRIEFS.
July 11, 2008... Payment card processor IRN Payment Systems has added Ingenico S.A.'s Aqua point-of-sale terminal to its free terminal program, according to Ingenico....Amazon.com Inc. customers today can begin using Bill Me Later Inc.'s payments service to...

CREDIT CARD SPENDING JUMPS IN MAY.
July 11, 2008... Credit card spending rebounded in May after falling in April for the first time since May 2005, according to the Federal Reserve's monthly Consumer Credit survey, a possible sign that consumers more often are relying on plastic to cover...

SOME MERCHANTS STILL PUT TOO MUCH DATA ON RECEIPTS.(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... Just slightly more than one month has passed since President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act of 2007, which quashed nearly 300 pending class-action lawsuits against retailers for printing credit and debit card...

BLACKSTONE SAYS GIFTCLIXX DEAL WILL HELP IT GROW.(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... Using GiftClixx LLC's system will enable Blackstone Calling Card Inc. to better compete with other card-distribution companies, Carlos Rodriguez, Blackstone president, tells CardLine. Gary Dinkin, GiftClixx CEO, founded the company in June to...

VENDOR ENABLES CONSUMERS TO PAY MORTGAGES WITH PLASTIC.(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... ChargeSmart LLC today launched a Web site that enables consumers to use credit cards to pay mortgages and other bills for a fee and a percentage of the transaction amount. Users of the Web site also can use cards to pay auto and student loans...

PERCENT OF COMPLIANT MERCHANTS INCREASED IN 1ST QUARTER: VISA.
July 11, 2008... Merchant compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard increased overall in the first quarter, Visa Inc. reported last week. Seventy-seven percent of large, so-called Level 1 merchants that process more than 6 million Visa...

NEVADA ISOS OUTPACE THEIR PEERS.(independent sales organizations)(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... Nevada-based independent sales organizations outstrip their competitors across the nation in annual payment card sales volume, according to a recent analysis from First Annapolis Consulting. By taking a ratio between the number of ISOs based in...

MORE BANKS INVEST IN ONLINE MARKETING DESPITE POOR RESULTS.
July 11, 2008... The Internet has yet to take hold as a customer-acquisition tool for card marketers, according to Ken Patterson, director of credit advisory service at Mercator Advisory Group. Consumers use the Internet to research offers on such Web sites as...

BRIEFS.
July 11, 2008... Contactless payment card manufacturer Oberthur Card Systems of America Corp. has changed its name to Oberthur Technologies of America Corp..... Air Academy Federal Credit Union, Amarillo Community Federal Credit Union, Colorado Springs Credit...

NEW MASTERCARD 'PRICELESS' AD TARGETS U.S. HISPANICS.
July 11, 2008... MasterCard Worldwide has targeted the Hispanic market for eight years, but this week the card brand launched its first marketing effort designed specifically for U.S. Hispanics. MasterCard's new "Priceless-"themed ad features the Mexican...

MPAYY SEEKS GROWTH AFTER SECURING ADDITIONAL FINANCING.(Brief article)
July 11, 2008... Mpayy Inc., a Chicago-based alternative-payments company, says it will use additional funding from U.S. Bancorp to grow its e-commerce, mobile commerce and widget-based payment services. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp also provided Mpayy with...

DEBT BUYER FACES A CHALLENGING YEAR AHEAD.
July 11, 2008... Asset Acceptance Capital Corp., a buyer of charged-off credit card accounts and other loans, faces a "difficult collections environment" that will adversely affect the company in the second half of the year, prompting Jefferies & Co. analyst...

MONEYPASS SIGNS ON ANOTHER COMMUNITY BANK.
July 11, 2008... Oregon Pacific Bank, a community bank based in Florence, Ore., has joined the MoneyPass surcharge-free ATM network, both companies announced yesterday. Since the beginning of the year about 100 financial institutions have joined MoneyPass, Doug...

PEMCO TECHNOLOGIES IS OFFERING NEW PREPAID PRODUCTS.
July 11, 2008... Pemco Technology Services Inc., an arm of Pemco Corp., is offering a new set of prepaid cards to credit unions and banks, the company announced this week. Based in Seattle, Pemco sells such services as credit and debit card processing,...

COBRANDING STILL AN EFFECTIVE CARDHOLDER LURE.
July 11, 2008... Cobranding is providing card issuers the most traction, says Megan Bramlette, managing associate at Auriemma Consulting Group, which is based in Westbury, N.Y. Issuers are creating relationships with retailers and sports teams to acquire...

UK COMPANY ACQUIRES DATACARD SOFTWARE PLATFORM.
July 11, 2008... Aconite, a United Kingdom-based provider of smart card services, and Datacard Corp. jointly announced Wednesday that Aconite has acquired Datacard's Affina Enterprise Platform software product. Datacard, a Minneapolis-based provider of...

BRIEFS.
July 11, 2008... MasterCard Worldwide today announced three additional seminars in the brand's Payment Card Industry Merchant Education Program intended to help merchants protect payment card data and reduce the likelihood of fraud....Plastic card manufacturer...

DEAL CREATES LARGEST SURCHARGE-FREE ATM NETWORK.
July 18, 2008... Credit Union 24, a surcharge-free ATM network for credit unions, has signed a multiyear deal with Cardtronics Inc.'s Allpoint surcharge-free network following a successful trial that created the nation's largest surcharge-free ATM network for...

CONSUMER UNDERSTANDING OF CREDIT SCORES REMAINS POOR.
July 18, 2008... U.S. consumers' poor understanding of how credit scoring works in obtaining credit cards, mortgages and insurance is costing them as much as $28 billion each year, suggest the results of a recent survey commissioned by the Consumer Federation...

MASTERCARD JOINS S&P 100.
July 18, 2008... MasterCard Inc. will replace General Motors Corp. in Standard & Poor's S&P 100 index of stocks, Standard & Poor's announced yesterday. The change takes effect after the close of trading on July 17. On the S&P 500 index, MasterCard replaced Ace...

FREEDOM CARDHOLDERS CAN USE REWARDS TO COVER PURCHASES.
July 18, 2008... JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Chase Card Services unit has added a statement credit feature to its Freedom rewards card. Consumers can select the amount of a purchase made in the last 60 days, then apply their rewards points to cover the purchase...

TRUSTWAVE BEEFS UP FORENSICS PRACTICE.
July 18, 2008... An increase in the number of cardholder data breaches is spurring Trustwave, a Chicago-based payment-security company, to add more investigators, the company announced today. Trustwave did not disclose how many were it hired for its SpiderLabs...

TRADE ASSOCIATION SETS UP ACCREDITATION FOR PREPAID.(Brief article)
July 18, 2008... The Prepaid International Forum, a London-based trade group for companies in the prepaid industry, has established an accreditation system for member companies that use its best practices. These practices include making sure marketing complies...

LONDON NEWSPAPER VENDORS ACCEPT PAYWAVE AND PAYPASS.
July 18, 2008... In perhaps the first payment project of its kind, about 350 street vendors who hawk The Evening Standard newspaper outside London Underground stations began accepting the contactless "Eros" prepaid payment and loyalty card last September. Now...

BRIEFS.(Brief article)
July 18, 2008... Christina M. McGuinness has joined TD Retail Card Services as a senior vice president of sales. She will lead the sales team in the U.S. and Canada for the private-label credit card division of TD Banknorth.... Global eTelecom, a...

HOUSE PANEL MAY VOTE THIS WEEK ON BILL TO SET INTERCHANGE FEES.
July 18, 2008... The House Judiciary Committee plans to vote this week on a bill that would require payment card networks to set new interchange rates for credit and debit card transactions, according to retail and payment industry groups. Merchant acquirers...

FORMER FLORIDA RESTAURANT OWNER CHARGED WITH CARD FRAUD.
July 18, 2008... Federal prosecutors have charged a former Florida restaurant owner with fraudulently charging more than $100,000 to the payment card accounts of his former customers and with trying to pass more than $4.6 million in bad checks. According to...

ISOS PREFER MASTERCARD AND VISA FOR MERCHANT CASH ADVANCES.
July 18, 2008... American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services transactions create a relatively higher risk for merchant cash-advance providers that advance funds to merchants in exchange for future card receivables, industry observers tell ISO&Agent...

DIAL-UP TERMINALS CONNECT VIA BROADBAND WITH TNS DEVICE.(Brief article)
July 18, 2008... Transaction Network Services Inc. has launched a service that enables merchants with dial-up point-of-sale terminals to connect to processors via a high-speed Internet connection, the company announced today. Dubbed FusionPoint Lite, the...

MARKETER OFFERING CHASE REBATE CARDS IN ADDITION TO CHECKS.
July 18, 2008... DataMatrix Promotions, a third-party marketer, has begun offering Visa-branded prepaid cards from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to businesses that want to give customers rebates, the White Plains, N.Y.-based company announced today. DataMatrix, a...

SOVEREIGN WEALTH ACQUIRES MOBILE-PAYMENTS COMPANY.
July 18, 2008... Sovereign Wealth Corp., a mobile-phone marketing and investment company, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire CellCard from eAccounts Inc., an Encinitas, Calif.-based merchant-services provider. The acquisition will...

RESEARCHER FOOLS DUTCH FINGERPRINT-PAYMENT SYSTEM.(Brief article)
July 18, 2008... A security consultant in Europe says he fooled a fingerprint-payment system being tested in Netherlands, but the processor involved in the project says he sees little reason to worry. Ton van der Putte, who says he has worked with banks,...

BRIEFS.(Brief article)
July 18, 2008... PayPal says the Apple App Store is making available the PayPal Mobile application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. The application enables users to send funds to friends and family via their PayPal accounts....TNB Card Services has...

US BANK REPORTS HIGHER CARD CHARGE-OFFS AND PAYMENTS INCOME.(Financial report)
July 18, 2008... U.S. Bancorp today reported that its payments-services activities, which include consumer and business credit cards, debit cards, stored-value cards, corporate and purchasing card services, consumer lines of credit and merchant processing,...

CAPITAL ONE REPORTS INCREASE IN CHARGE-OFFS FOR JUNE.
July 18, 2008... Capital One Financial Corp. today reported that the annualized charge-off rate for its credit card portfolio in June rose 14 basis points, to 6.42% of total receivables from 6.28% in May. The rate in June of last year was 3%. The portfolio's...

STUDY: MORE WOMEN THAN MEN APPEAR HEADED FOR BANKRUPTCY.
July 18, 2008... A larger percentage of women versus men sought credit counseling last year, though the gap did narrow from the previous year, according to a survey report by the Institute for Financial Literacy, a Portland, Maine-based nonprofit...

FOUR NEW MICHIGAN GIFT CARD LAWS INTENDED TO AID CONSUMERS.
July 18, 2008... Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm yesterday signed four bills into law that establish new policy limits for store gift cards. Under the new laws, which take effect on Nov. 1, retailers may not refuse gift cards during a closeout, liquidation...