Cardline articles from June 2003

Cardline archives from June 2003

AMAZON.COM TO OFFER ACH AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO CARDS.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Amazon.com Inc. plans to offer its customers an ACH-style payment option later this year as an alternative to credit and debit card payments, Jay DeWitt, senior manager of the Seattle-based online retailer, said at the Federal Reserve Bank of...

SEATTLE STORE'S CUSTOMERS LET THEIR FINGERS DO THE PAYING.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... The owner of a Seattle grocery store says he has used a voluntary biometric program to steer customers to his least costly card payment option, PIN-based debit. Paul Kapioski, owner of the West Seattle Thriftway, says more than 3,000 customers...

GOVERNMENT INDICTS EXECUTIVES OF FAILED SUBPRIME ISSUER.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... A federal grand jury in Denver has indicted former executives of BestBank, a now defunct subprime card issuer, and executives of a related company. BestBank collapsed in July 1998. The indictment, handed down earlier this month, was unsealed...

RBC'S SECOND-QUARTER CARD REVENUES GREW 3%.(Royal Bank of Canada)(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Royal Bank of Canada today reported second-quarter card-service revenues of C$63 million, up 3.2% compared with 2002's second quarter, but down 13.7% from 2003's first-quarter revenues of C$73 million. RBC, Canada's largest bank, reported that...

ONEX NEGOTIATES TO BUY A PORTION OF AEROPLAN.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Onex Corp., a diversified Toronto-based company that reported C$23 billion in revenues last year, is negotiating to buy a stake in financially troubled Air Canada's Aeroplan loyalty program, Ernst & Young Inc., Air Canada's court-appointed...

BANKFIRST, MASTERCARD INTRODUCE BENEFITS PAYMENT CARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... BankFirst announced today that it is issuing the HumanaAccess MasterCard that allows Humana employees with flexible spending accounts or health reimbursement arrangements to access those funds by swiping their card at the provider's office or...

NATIONWIDE NAMES FORMER CARD EXECUTIVE AS COO.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Nationwide Credit Inc., a Kennesaw, GA-based collections company, has named another former card executive to a top job ationwide named Ralph Ayala, 39, chief operating officer, a new position. Ayala joined Nationwide from GE Card Services,...

DISCOVER OPENS NETWORK TO OTHER ISSUERS.
June 6, 2003... Discover Financial Services, issuer of the Discover card, today announced that it is opening its Discover-Novus network to other companies to issue proprietary prepaid cards that may or may not carry the Discover brand. Discover also said it...

CARDS OFFER THE MOST-POPULAR LOYALTY PROGRAMS.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Card issuers offer the most popular rewards programs, followed by airlines, retail stores, and hotels, according to the Maritz Poll, a unit of marketing-consultant Maritz Research Inc. Cards were cited by 29% of those surveyed followed by 24%...

CARD EXECUTIVES' COMPENSATION INCREASES 8%.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Mean total compensation for card-industry chief executives rose 8% to $20.4 million in 2002, according to data supplied to Credit Card Management magazine by Standard & Poor's ExecuComp and Equilar Inc. The two firms track pay for top...

CARD SOLICITATIONS DROP IN 2002.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Card solicitation letters dropped to 4.89 billion letters in 2002 from 5.01 billion in 2001, with consumer response rates around 0.5%, according to Synovate Financial Services Practice. The offers generated about 28 million card applications...

FIRST HAWAIIAN, CARDINAL COMMERCE SIGN AN AGREEMENT.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... First Hawaiian Bank announced today that it has signed an agreement with CardinalCommerce Corp. to use Cardinal Centinel, a payment authentication software. First Hawaiian will offer Cardinal Centinel, which provides MasterCard SecureCode and...

STATE STREET OFFERS COLLEGE-SAVINGS CARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... State Street Corp.'s Schoolhouse Capital is offering The Education Plan 529 Advantage credit card that provides cardholders with savings towards a college education when they make qualified purchases, a spokesperson tells CardLine today. MBNA...

CARDTRONICS NAMES PRESIDENT OF MARKETING.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Cardtronics, a Houston-based owner and operator of ATMs, has named Lloyd L obles vice president of marketing. Before joining Cardtronics, Nobles was a category manager at SSP Partners, a convenience store and petroleum-retail chain in Corpus...

AMEX WINS AIR CANADA'S AEROPLAN CONTRACT.
June 6, 2003... American Express Co.'s AmEx Bank of Canada has signed a letter of intent with Air Canada to become the second card issuer for the airline's Aeroplan LP loyalty points program, David Barnes, vice president of public affairs and communications,...

CITIBANK WILL DROP SONY CARD, REPLACING IT WITH THE DIAMOND CARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank will drop its cobranded Sony rewards card June 16 and replace it with the Citi Diamond Preferred card, Citibank recently told Sony cardholders in a letter.... Due to business reasons, Sony and Citi have decided to no...

AS ATMS TURN 30, CONSUMERS STILL FIND THEM USEFUL.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Debit card holders may not be using ATMs much more than they have been the last few years, but consumers place great value in having ATMs available, according to a new survey by Harris Interactive that was sponsored by Scottsdale, AZ-based...

ACS WINS ARKANSAS EBT CONTRACT.(Affiliated Computer Services)(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... The Arkansas Department of Human Services has awarded a seven-year electronic benefits transfer contract to Affiliated Computer Services, the companies announced Friday. ACS, which is based in Dallas, will be the primary contractor to manage...

VISA INTERNATIONAL WINS U.K. CONTRACT.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... The Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom has awarded a five-year contract for purchasing cards to Visa International and a consortium of British banks. The office, which is responsible for procurement policy, is expected to save...

VISA REPORTS $1 TRILLION IN PAYMENTS.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Visa U.S.A. announced yesterday that consumers had used its payments cards to make more than $1 trillion in transactions during a 12-month period, a first for the San Francisco-based association. For the year ending March 31, Visa claimed $1.01...

GENPASS MAKES EXECUTIVE MOVES.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Genpass Inc. today named Douglas D. Anderson president of its Genpass Card Solutions unit and William G. Raymond president of its Genpass ATM Solutions unit. Genpass President Bipin C. Shah said in a statement that the moves are part of a plan...

CORRECTION.(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
June 6, 2003... A headline published in last week's edition of CardLine was incorrect. It should have said that Cardtronics names vice president of marketing. CardLine regrets the error. Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All Rights Reserved....

BANK ONE WILL ISSUE NEW SONY REWARDS CARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Sony Corp. of America has selected Bank One Corp. to issue the new Sony rewards card that the electronics giant is promoting on its Web site, Michael Auriemma, president of Auriemma Consulting Group Inc., tells CardLine today. Sony sent out an...

MASTERCARD REPORTS THAT FIRST-QUARTER GROSS-DOLLAR VOLUME WAS UP 7.3%.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... MasterCard International reported today that in the first quarter cardholders used MasterCard-branded cards, excluding Maestro and Cirrus, to initiate 3.4 billion transactions, generating a gross-dollar volume (GDV) of $285.7 billion, up 7.3%...

CERTEGY LAUNCHES PATRIOT GUARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Certegy Inc. today launched Patriot Guard, a Web-based product that will enable its customers to comply with the USA Patriot Act. The federal law requires that beginning Oct. 1 financial institutions determine if their customers are members of...

HOUSE CANCELS VOTE ON INTERNET GAMBLING.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday canceled a vote on a bill that would have blocked the use of credit cards to make payments on Internet gambling sites. The bill was pulled from the House's schedule. It is going to the Rules Committee...

FIRST DATA BEGINS ISSUING NEW MARKETING MATERIALS.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... First Data Corp. is slowly rolling out new company marketing materials designed to brand the Greenwood Village, CO-based processor with a single tagline promoting its international businesses. The tagline, One Company. Making Global Commerce...

VISA REPORTS INCREASE IN RECURRING PAYMENTS TIED TO CARDS.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Visa U.S.A.'s automatic bill payments card volume was $39.9 billion in 2002, up 25% compared with $32 billion in 2001, Armen Khachadourian, Visa's senior vice president of merchant sales and integrated solutions, tells CardLine. Automatic bill...

NETBANK NAMES EULA ADAMS TO ITS BOARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... NetBank Inc. has named Eula Adams to NetBank's 11-member board of directors, company officials announced Tuesday. Adams, who was senior executive vice president of the First Data Corp. for more than 10 years, fills a vacancy left by Donald S....

MASTERCARD, VISA SIGN FORMAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT WITH MERCHANTS.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... MasterCard International and Visa U.S.A. today signed formal agreements settling the merchant class-action lawsuit in which the card associations agreed to pay $3.05 billion. Visa and MasterCard also said they will work together to obtain...

MASTERCARD CUTS DEBIT RATES, HIKES CREDIT RATES.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... MasterCard International will cut its interchange rate for signature-based debit transactions by one-third beginning Aug. 1, MasterCard announced today. MasterCard's board of directors for the U.S. region approved the changes to comply with...

AMEX MAY SUE VISA AND MASTERCARD.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... American Express Co. Chairman and CEO Kenneth Chenault told analysts Wednesday the card issuer may sue Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International if the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a district court decision ordering the card...

U.S. SIGNATURE-DEBIT VOLUME KEEPS RISING.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... U.S. consumers and businesses during the first three months of this year initiated 2.18 billion signature-based purchases with their Visa check cards and debit MasterCards, up 21% from 1.8 billion transactions during the same three-month...

KEYCORP CANADA SIGNS TERMINAL DEAL WITH TOYS "R" US.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Keycorp Canada Inc. has signed an agreement to supply Toys "R" Us (Canada) Ltd. with about 690 K23 payment terminals to Toys "R" Us stores throughout Canada, Michael Pitura, Keycorp's senior account manager, tells CardLine today. Toys "R" Us...

BANKRUPTCY COURT GIVES SPIEGEL OK TO LIQUIDATE FCNB.(First Consumers National Bank card-issuing subsidiary)(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York has given bankrupt Spiegel Inc. permission to liquidate its First Consumers National Bank card-issuing subsidiary, a Spiegel spokesperson tells CardLine today. When Downers Grove, IL-based Spiegel filed...

WESTERN UNION OFFERS ATM-TO-ATM MONEY TRANSFERS ON A LARGE SCALE.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2003... Western Union, the world's-largest money-transfer company, recently became the first company to offer ATM-to-ATM money transfers in large numbers. Western Union is offering money transfers to and from about 4,000 ATMs, most of which are...

REVOLVING CREDIT SLIGHTLY INCREASES.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Revolving credit in April was $722.6 billion compared with March's revised $721.2 billion, the Federal Reserve reported this afternoon. The annual rate of growth for revolving debt in April was 2.3%. April's figure compared with February's...

CAMBRIDGE REPORTS JUMP IN CONSUMER CONFIDENCE.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... The Cambridge Consumer Credit Index today reported its largest increase since November, strongly suggesting that consumers are optimistic about the economy and are willing to take on more debt, Allen Grommet, Cambridge's senior economist, tells...

ROYAL BANK OF CANADA AGREES TO SELL AFFINITY PORTFOLIO TO MBNA CANADA.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Royal Bank of Canada, Canada's second-largest Visa issuer and a founding member of the Visa Canada Association, has agreed to sell its affinity card portfolio to MBNA Canada, a Mastercard issuer, for an undisclosed price, an RBC spokesperson...

NATIONAL PROCESSING WILL PURCHASE BRIDGEVIEW PAYMENT SOLUTIONS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Na tional Processing Co. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase merchant processor Bridgeview Payment Solutions Inc. from Bridgeview Bank and Trust Co. for $32.3 million, NPC said in a news release. The...

METRIS GETS LOAN.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... A lender group will provide monoline credit card issuer Metris Companies Inc. with a one-year, $125 million term loan at a 12% interest rate, Minnetonka, MN-based Metris announced today. The new loan replaces a Mar ch 31 commitment by Thomas H....

VISA BANKS GET A BIGGER BREAK ON POS TERMINALS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Point-of-sale terminal vendo r Cybernet Inc. and Visa International have announced an additional incentive for Visa acquirers to move to smart cards, a $20 rebate on a chip card-capable POS device for each older POS terminal turned in. The...

TWO MORE L.A. BUS OPERATORS JOIN SMART CARD SYSTEM.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems, a subsidiary of Cubic Corp., says two more Los Angeles-area bus operators have signed contracts to equip 325 vehicles to accept a smart card that will be used on public transport throughout Los...

AMEX TAKES OFF WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... In its second major deal with a large airline in less than a week, American Express Co. announced today that it will issue a cobranded corporate card for American Airlines targeting mid-size businesses. The Business ExtrAA Corporate Card will...

FIRST DATA, MASTERCARD ALIGN FOR CORPORATE CARDS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... First Data Corp.'s Velosant unit and MasterCard International announced today a product-development and marketing deal in business-to-business payments that will target corporate and government clients. MasterCard's e-P3 corporate purchasing...

ACH VOLUME KEEPS GROWING WHILE CHECKS DECLINE.(automated clearing house)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Check volume at the automated clearing house rose 12% in 2002 to 4.99 billion while the number of checks processed by the Federal Reserve fell 1.9% to 16.59 billion, according to NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association. While ACH volume has...

VERIFONE REVENUES RISE.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... VeriFone Inc expects revenues of $350 million and $50 million in earnings before taxes and interest in its fiscal year ending in October, Michelle Graff, director of global marketing, tells CardLine today in Chicago. That compares to about $320...

CIRCUIT CITY SAYS IT'S OFF THE SALE CIRCUIT.(credit card portfolio)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. is playing down a Reuter's report that it would consider selling its flagging credit card portfolio. While responding to a question about whether Richmond, VA-based Circuit City would...

A BILLION FOR BIOPAY.(Biometric payments firm BioPay LLC has verified more than 3 mil transactions worth $1 bil)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Biometric payments firm BioPay LLC reported today it had verified more than three million transactions worth $1 billion, and signed 500,000 consumers in 31 states. BioPay's Paycheck Secure product uses a biometric image of a consumer's...

FURNITURE RETAILER SELLS CARD PROGRAM TO ALLIANCE DATA.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... American Home Furnishings, an Albuquerque, NM-based furniture retailer with eight stores in New Mexico and Arizona, has sold its private-label credit card portfolio to Alliance Data Systems Corp., Alliance Data announced today. Alliance will...

BANK ONE'S MILEAGE PLUS CARD LOSING ALTITUDE.
June 13, 2003... Bank One Corp.'s United Airlines Mileage Plus card is losing altitude among online consumers because of United Airlines' bankruptcy, according to a survey released by Compete Inc., a Boston-based company that measures online behavior as being...

BANKS, THRIFTS DROP FEES THEY CHARGE CUSTOMERS WHO USE NON-BANK ATMS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Some large banks and savings and loans apparently are thinking twice about the fees they charge their own debit card holders to use ATMs the financial institutions don't own. A Federal Reserve survey of 620 financial institutions reported a...

TOUCHCREDIT SIGNS FIRST CUSTOMER FOR ITS ONLINE BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION.
June 13, 2003... TouchCredit Financial Services Inc., a Marina del Rey, CA-based biometric company, has signed a licensing agreement with Electracash Inc., James N. Uberti, TouchCredit's founder and chief architect, tells CardLine. The agreement enables...

EONE GLOBAL GETS FRANK FOR NEW CUSTOMERS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... First Data Corp.'s eOne Global division announced today that it bought Frank Solutions Inc., an interactive voice-response, computer telephony and interactive Web response firm serving the government. Frank Solutions will remain at its...

GE, FIRST DATA ADD FIVE YEARS TO AGREEMENT.(General Electric Consumer Finance and Data Corp.)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Processor First Data Corp. and General Electric Co.'s GE Consumer Finance-Americas unit have extended their long-term processing agreement by five years, First Data reported today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The pact covers...

YAGA, AUTHORIZE.NET SIGN AGREEMENT.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Yaga, Inc. has been selected by Internet gateway provider Authorize.Net to provide digital-content commerce services, the two firms announced today. American Fork, UT-based Authorize.Net has about 80,000 online merchant customers. San...

CYBERSOURCE NAMES VP OF WORLDWIDE SALES.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... CyberSource Corp. yesterday named George Jathas senior vice president of worldwide sales, replacing Mike Hall, who left in April. Before joining CyberSource, Jathas had senior executive positions at two online companies, Promisant and Orbiscom....

BANK ONE SAYS UNITED MILEAGE PLUS CARD IS FLYING HIGH.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Bank One Corp. today responded to a report that its United Airlines Mileage Plus rewards card is suffering because of United Airlines' bankruptcy. A Bank One Card Services spokesperson says that new card accounts generated via the Internet are...

HOUSE BANS CARD USE FOR OFFSHORE INTERNET GAMBLING.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday passed legislation banning the use of credit cards to place bets at illegal offshore Internet gambling casinos. House members passed the Unlawful Gambling Funding Prohibition Act 319 to 104. If the bill...

E*TRADE, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND AREN'T SEEING EYE-TO-EYE ON ATM RETROFIT.(E*Trade Group will retrofit 2,000 off-premise ATMs it owns with voice-activation technology for blind and visually impaired)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... E*Trade Group Inc. will retrofit 2,000 off-premise ATMs it owns with voice-activation technology for the blind and visually impaired, but the National Federation of the Blind and Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly aren't happy....

STAPLES ORDERS 6,500 HYPERCOM TERMINALS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Staples Inc., a leading office-supply retailer, plans to purchase 6,500 Hypercom ICE 6000Plus payment terminals with the HyperSafe operating system as part of a multimillion-dollar deal, Hypercom Corp., a Phoenix-based terminal manufacturer,...

CHECK-CLEARING LEGISLATION PASSES.(Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... The U.S. House of Representatives has passed by a unanimous vote the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act. The House approved the measure last week on a 405-0 vote. A similar measure, called the Check Truncation Act, is before the U.S....

CARDTRONICS BUYS ISO, EXPANDING ITS ATM FOOTPRINT.(Cardtronics Inc. buys independent sales organization National Bank Equipment Corp.)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Cardtronics Inc., the Houston-based ATM independent sales organization, continues to expand its national ATM footprint with the purchase of the Buffalo, NY-based independent sales organization, National Bank Equipment Corp. Cardtronics is...

CARDUSA NAMES VP OF MANUFACTURING.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... CardUSA, a Hollywood, FL, card manufacturer, has named Ron Stewart vice president of card production and technology. Stewart will be responsible for the overall development and execution of the company's card procurement and vendor relations....

CAPITAL ONE SETTLES AGE-DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT.(Capital One Financial Corp.)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Capital One Financial Corp. announced this afternoon that it has settled an age-discrimination lawsuit brought by a group of its former employees, but the McLean, VA-based issuer and the other parties involved declined to disclose the...

BANK ONE WILL HELP VOLKSWAGEN FIND DRIVERS.(Bank One will issue a Visa Platinum no-annual-fee rewards card )
June 13, 2003... Bank One Card Services and Volkswagen Bank USA have signed an agreement in which Bank One will issue a Visa Platinum no-annual-fee rewards card that's designed to drive cars off the showroom floor and bring repair work into the dealerships, Ray...

BANK ONE ADMITS UNITED CARD HAS SUFFERED.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Bank One Card Services today retracted its assertion that new United Airlines Mileage Plus card accounts generated via the Internet were higher than ever (CardLine 6-11). A spokesperson for Bank One Card Services, a subsidiary of Bank One...

DELL'S NEW LAPTOPS COME WITH SMART CARD READERS.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Round Rock, TX-based Dell Computer Corp., the No. 1 personal-computer maker worldwide, has made smart card readers standard equipment in its new Latitude line of laptop computers introduced this year for corporate and government clients. Dell...

ROUND TWO OF ZERO-PERCENT RATES FOR U.S. BANCORP.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, the nation's 15th-largest credit card issuer, will again offer 0% introductory interest rates on its credit cards. The promotion, which gives customers the 0% rate for six months, is an effort to book new...

BOERSTLER TO JOIN DEBITMAN BOARD.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Barry Boerstler, former president and CEO of Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions, formerly Midwest Payment Systems, and executive vice president at Fifth Third Bank, later this month will become a board director at DebitMan Card Inc., the...

MONERIS RENEWS AGREEMENT WITH CHICAGO BANK.(Moneris Solutions and Devon Bank)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2003... Merchant acquirer Moneris Solutions and Devon Bank of Chicago have renewed their more than 20-year card-processing contract. The agreement enables Devon, a community bank, to offer Moneris' credit-card proc essing services to Devon's 226...

BEST BUY SUES VISA, MASTERCARD OVER DEBIT CARD RATES.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Though Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International have settled a class-action lawsuit involving millions of merchants, not all retailers accepted the settlement. One, Minneapolis-based Best Buy Co., this week filed its own antitrust complaint...

COURT UPHOLDS RULING AGAINST EXXON.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Wednesday upheld a lower-court decision ordering Exxon, now known as Exxon Mobil Corp., to pay $500 million to 10,000 Exxon dealers in 35 states who discouraged consumers from paying for gas...

DOJ ASKS FIRST DATA FOR MORE INFORMATION.(United States Department of Justice)(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... First Data Corp. and Concord EFS Inc. today announced that the U.S. Department of Justice has requested additional information regarding First Data's impending $7 billion stock deal to acquire Concord. "We'll review what's in the second request...

POKER.COM BELIEVES ITS NEW HAND IS NOT A HOUSE OF CARDS.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Poker.com Inc., a Vancouver, British Columbia, online gambling company, is folding its hand on some types of Internet gambling paid by credit cards. Instead Poker.com will offer other types of gambling that will comply with legislation passed...

LA QUINTA INNS MAKE ROOM FOR FIFTH THIRD.(electronic payment processing unit contracted for card processing )(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Fifth Third Bank's electronic payment processing unit will provide card processing for La Quinta Inns and La Quinta Inn & Suites in more than 33 states, both companies announced recently. Cincinnati-based Fifth Third will handle Visa,...

FORMER HERITAGE BANK PRESIDENT JOINS INTERCEPT.(John Whitley)(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... InterCept Inc. announced recently that John Whitley has joined the company to handle relationship management. Whitley and his team will assist customers in better understanding InterCept's services, the company said in a news release. Whitley...

JOB DEMANDS FORCE NPC EXECUTIVE TO RESIGN FROM CATUITY'S BOARD.(National Processing Co.)(Rob Robins)(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Catuity Inc., a Detroit-based loyalty company, recently announced that Rob Robins, executive vice president of business development at National Processing Co., has resigned from Catuity's board of directors. Catuity Chairman Duncan P.F. Mount...

LAS VEGAS BETS ON NEW REWARDS CARD TO BOOST TOURISM.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Vegas.com, the official travel Web site of the City of Las Vegas, announced today that it is offering a Platinum Plus Vis a rewards card to city residents, and people who frequently visit there. MBNA Corp. is issuing the card that gives...

MBNA'S CARD CHARGEOFF RATE FOR MAY INCREASES SLIGHTLY.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... In a U.S. Securities Exchange Commission filing today, MBNA Corp. today reported a managed chargeoff rate on credit card loans of 5.04% of receivables on an annualized basis in May. This compares with a 5.02% chargeoff rate in April. The...

FIGHT SARS, PAY WITH CARDS.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Aiming to reduce the use of paper currency that might carry the SARS virus, Beijing authorities are encouraging consumers to pay with bank cards, according to the Smart Card Forum of China. The trade association's newsletter says the Beijing...

ATM TASK FORCE ISSUES ITS FIRST RECOMMENDATIONS.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... The ATM Integrity Task Force of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association has adopted its first recommendations on how ATM owners and operators can prevent fraud. The task force, formed last year at the urging of several federal agencies,...

METAVANTE, WHITAKER BANK CORPORATION INK DEAL.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... Metavante Corp. announced today that it signed a long-term agreement with Whitaker Bank Corp. of Kentucky, a multi-state bank-holding company headquartered in Lexington. Metavante will provide card-transaction processing, card personalization,...

FIRST DATA SIGNS FIVE-YEAR AGREEMENT WITH BANCO POPULAR.(Brief Article)
June 20, 2003... First Data Corp. recently announced that it has signed a five-year management-software agreement with Banco Popular Dominicano, the Dominican Republic's largest bank. Banco Popular will use First Data's VisionPlus software for accounts...