Cardline articles from November 2007

Cardline archives from November 2007

DISCOVER A TAKEOVER CANDIDATE?
November 2, 2007... Discover Financial Services might be an attractive candidate for takeover, according to a report last week by Craig Maurer, an analyst with Credit Agricole Group's Calyon Securities USA Inc. Discover, "while not presenting competitive...

APPLE LIMITS IPHONE SALES TO CREDIT AND DEBIT CARDS.
November 2, 2007... Apple Inc. now accepts only credit and debit cards for iPhone purchases and limits the number of phones to two per customer. Previously, a customer could purchase up to five iPhones using credit or debit cards or cash. Apple instituted the...

TOP ISSUERS' CHARGE-OFFS RISE 19% IN Q3.
November 2, 2007... Top U.S. credit card issuers saw their third-quarter charge-offs rise 19.5% compared with the same period of 2006, according to an analysis by CardLine sister publication CCRNewsline. Top issuers-including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase,...

ISSUERS OFFER RELIEF TO CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE VICTIMS.
November 2, 2007... A growing number of card-issuing banks are giving California wildfire victims breaks on loan payments and ATM fees. U.S. Bank announced Friday that it is offering "flexibility" on payments of credit card balances and other loans held by...

CARD FRAUD ROUNDUP.
November 2, 2007... Not Your Average Joe's, a Dartmouth, N.H.-based chain of 14 restaurants, reported last week that its Massachusetts restaurants were the target of payment card data thieves in August and September. Forensic investigators do not believe...

PREPAID VALUE TO HIT NEARLY $180 BILLION IN THREE YEARS.
November 2, 2007... The value of prepaid transactions in the United States is expected to reach $178 billion by 2010, up from $113 billion this year, according to Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based research and consulting firm. That represents 1.2% of personal...

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES PROPOSE RULE TO BLOCK INTERNET GAMBLING PAYMENTS.
November 2, 2007... The Department of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System earlier this month proposed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which would prohibit gambling businesses from accepting payments in connection...

BRIEFS.
November 2, 2007... Humboldt Merchant Services, a Eureka, Calif.-based independent sales organization, says it has signed a merchant acquiring deal with Discover Financial Services. Beginning in November, Humboldt will offer merchants a single statement and...

TSYS SPIN-OFF LOOKS TO BOOST INTERNATIONAL REVENUE.
November 2, 2007... Columbus, Ga.-based Total System Services Inc. yesterday announced its agreement to be spun off from parent Synovus Financial Corp., three months after the card processing company signaled its intentions to become independent (CardLine, 7/27)....

CONSUMERS CARE MORE ABOUT BANK FEES THAN BANK SECURITY, REPORT SAYS.
November 2, 2007... Excessive bank fees are much more likely to drive customers to switch banks than security concerns, according to a new report by Stamford, Conn.-based consultancy Gartner Inc. Gartner's online survey in August of 5,000 bank customers found that...

FIDELITY INCREASES REVENUE, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS IN THIRD QUARTER.(Financial report)
November 2, 2007... Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Information Services Inc. announced this week its third-quarter results, which showed a revenue increase of 10.4% to $1.17 billion from $1.06 billion in the third quarter of 2006. Net earnings for the...

SURVEY FINDS INCENTIVE PREPAID GIFT CARDS MOTIVATE CONSUMER PURCHASES.
November 2, 2007... Prepaid gift card promotions positively impact consumer purchases, according to a First Data Corp. study released this week. Most consumers, 76%, are interested in purchasing or testing a product if they receive a gift card as an incentive for...

CHECKFREE REPORTS LOWER NET INCOME FOR FISCAL FIRST QUARTER.(Financial report)
November 2, 2007... Atlanta-based CheckFree Corp. yesterday reported its net income for the first fiscal quarter ended September 30 was $29.8 million, down 4.5% from $31.2 million for the same period a year ago. Revenues for the quarter were $284.7 million, up...

NORTH DAKOTA TO PAY UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS ON DEBIT CARDS.
November 2, 2007... Beginning in November, North Dakota's Job Service will distribute unemployment benefits electronically and eliminate check payments. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank Corp. is supplying the Visa-branded debit cards, called ReliaCards, to unemployment...

TRANSPORTATION CARD RULES SUSPENDED FOR ONE YEAR.
November 2, 2007... The Internal Revenue Service recently postponed for one year the effective date of a ruling that provides guidance to employers who use smartcards, debit or credit cards to provide qualified transportation benefits to their employees under IRS...

BRIEFS.
November 2, 2007... Comdata Processing Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Ceridian Corp., yesterday announced it has selected Scottsdale, Ariz.-based wireless-payment company Apriva as its provider of wireless gateway services....Washington Mutual Inc. announced this...

CREDIT CARDS ARE LEADING PAYMENT FORM IN SCAMS.(Survey)(Brief article)
November 2, 2007... The Federal Trade Commission yesterday reported that 13.5% of adults in the United States, or about one in seven, were victims of fraud in 2005, the most recent year figures are available. In its second national survey of fraud trends, the FTC...

CONSUMERS TO INCREASE GIFT CARD SPENDING.
November 2, 2007... The average gift-card purchaser will spend $203 on gift cards this year, a 9.1% increase over the $186 spent in 2006, says a report released today by Comdata Corp. The Brentwood, Tenn.-based processor and stored-value card company says the...

PAY HEED TO COURT DECISIONS THAT AFFECT ISSUERS AND AGENCIES.(Brief article)
November 2, 2007... Courts made 129 rulings regarding credit card accounts and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act between September 2006 and September 2007, according to Michael D. Slodov, compliance officer and partner in Javitch, Block & Rathbone LLP, who...

GIFTCARD.COM LAUNCHES ORDERING SYSTEM.
November 2, 2007... Pennsylvania-based GiftCard.com LLC says its corporate clients can use a new card-ordering system, CardTrack, to purchase gift cards for their employees. The company provides prepaid Visa debit cards to consumers and corporations to give as...

HSBC REPORTS STRONG DEMAND FOR DECOUPLED DEBIT CARDS.
November 2, 2007... HSBC Finance Corp. is seeing strong demand for decoupled debit cards, says Daniel Eckert, the company's head of venture, acquisition and development. Decoupled debit cards can deduct funds from a checking account at an institution other than...

BANKS WIN WHEN CONSUMERS MAKE CHOICES ABOUT AVOIDING ATM SURCHARGES.
November 2, 2007... When faced with a foreign ATM surcharge increase, some consumers elect to change their banking relationships to avoid fees, according to a Synergistics Research Corp. report scheduled for release tomorrow. The report says 67% of consumers would...

NASHVILLE COMPANY LAUNCHES CHARITY GIFT CARDS.
November 2, 2007... Nashville, Tenn.-based Giving Tree LLC has launched a business and Web site to sell stored-value gift cards that benefit the recipient and a charity of his or her choice. The for-profit company intends to offer the Giving Tree GiveCard...

BRIEFS.
November 2, 2007... On Track Innovations Ltd., an Israel-based contactless technology company, is providing an adhesive sticker containing a contactless smart card chip says Princeton, N.J.-based Heartland Payment Systems for use in the merchant acquirer's...

MASTERCARD 3Q NET INCOME SOARS 63% ON RECORD REVENUE.(Financial report)
November 2, 2007... MasterCard today is reporting net income of $314.5 million in the third quarter of 2007 ended Sept. 30, up 62.9% from $193 million in third quarter 2006. Net revenues for the quarter were $1.083 billion, a record for the company and a 20.1%...

IBM OFFERS PRODUCTS TO EASE PCI COMPLIANCE.
November 2, 2007... IBM announced today a phased program intended to help merchants and service providers comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, known as PCI. PCI is a security standard governed by the Wakefield, Mass.-based PCI Security...

NCR REPORTS THIRD-QUARTER NUMBERS SANS TERADATA.
November 2, 2007... NCR Corp., the world's largest ATM manufacturer in terms of estimated number of machines shipped last year, today reported a third-quarter net income of $33 million from continuing operations compared with $89 million for the same three-month...

CARD PORTFOLIOS DOMINATE BUYING SPREE.(Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc.)(Encore Capital Group Inc.)(Brief article)
November 2, 2007... Publicly traded consumer debt buyers Encore Capital Group Inc. and Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc. invested heavily in charged-off card debt during the third quarter. Encore spent nearly $47.9 on portfolios in the period-up 48% from $32.3...

SIMON PROPERTY GROUP TO OFFER AMERICAN EXPRESS GIFT CARDS AT FOUR MALLS.
November 2, 2007... New York-based American Express Co. and Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group Inc. have signed an agreement to offer American Express gift cards at four of Simon's Florida malls. Starting in November, shoppers can buy the cards at the...

NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF SHOPPERS TO GIVE GIFT CARDS, SURVEY SAYS.
November 2, 2007... Approximately 64% of shoppers say they plan to give gift cards this holiday season, according to a survey by San Jose, Calif.-based online payment service PayPal. That should make for many satisfied recipients, as 57% of respondents prefer...

AITE SURVEY: SMALL BILLERS CONCERNED ABOUT CARD COSTS.
November 2, 2007... Small billers, such as utilities, insurance carriers, hospitals, telecom carriers, property management firms, mortgage firms and cable/TV companies, say they are concerned about credit and debit card acceptance costs, according to a survey...

BRIEFS.
November 2, 2007... The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 25 basis points to 4.5%....Innovative Card Technologies Inc., developers of the ICT DisplayCard security device for e-banking, e-commerce and data...

CHICAGO SHELL STATIONS TESTING BIOMETRIC PAYMENTS.
November 2, 2007... Ten Chicago-area Shell Oil Co. gasoline stations are testing biometric payments supported by Pay By Touch, a San Francisco-based company that supports fingerprint-data verification for payments at the point of sale. The stations are deploying...

CONSUMER ADOPTION PRESENTS CHALLENGE FOR DECOUPLED DEBIT.
November 2, 2007... Consumer adoption of decoupled debit presents a challenge for merchants and providers of decoupled programs, according to a report released yesterday by Waltham, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group. With decoupled debit, card issuers that do...

COMDATA OFFERS TEXT-MESSAGING TO CHECK GIFT CARD BALANCES.
November 2, 2007... Consumers can check their gift-card balances by text message, thanks to technology that Brentwood, Tenn.-based vendor Comdata Stored Value Solutions says is the first of its kind. The service, created through an alliance with San Diego-based...

RBC LAUNCHES VISA MOBILE-PAYMENT TEST IN ONTARIO.(Royal Bank of Canada)(Brief article)
November 2, 2007... RBC and Visa Canada are conducting Canada's first test of cell phones for contactless payments, Anne Koski, head of payments innovation in RBC's Cards division, tells CardLine. The test is based in Ontario and will have three phases: a lab...

CREDIT MANAGERS: CREDIT TIGHTENS FURTHER IN OCTOBER.
November 2, 2007... The Credit Manager's Index, a gauge of economic factors affecting credit and collection professionals, fell 1.0 point in October to a score of 53.8 from September's 54.8, according to the National Association of Credit Management. Any score...

HEARTLAND IMPROVES 3Q MARGINS AND PROMOTES EXECUTIVES.
November 2, 2007... Heartland Payment Systems Inc., a Princeton, N.J.-based payment processor, says its third-quarter net income was $11.8 million, a 17% increase from the $10.1 million in net income in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the quarter...

FLORIDA UNIVERSITY ADDS SMARTCENTRIC SMART CARD SOFTWARE.
November 2, 2007... Ireland-based SmartCentric Technologies International Ltd. now has 10 United States universities using its SmartCity smart card software, CEO Kiernan J. Timmins tells CardLine sister publication CardLine Global. Nova Southeastern University in...

BRIEFS.
November 2, 2007... Marshall & Ilsley Corp. and Metavante Technologies Inc. announced today they have completed the separation of their two firms and are now independent, publicly traded companies. Beginning Nov. 2, Metavante will trade under the symbol "MV."...

CONSUMER LAW CENTER CALLS FOR CREDIT CARD INTEREST AND FEE REGULATION.
November 9, 2007... The Boston-based National Consumer Law Center yesterday urged Congress to halt the spread of so-called "fee-harvester" credit cards that offer low credit limits and charge high fees. In a report, the center cited an example from CompuCredit...

TJX CONTEMPLATED NETWORK UPGRADE BEFORE DATA BREACH.
November 9, 2007... Executives at TJX Companies Inc. discussed upgrading the firm's payments network not long before the infamous data breach that exposed the personal information of thousands, according to court documents. Lawyers for a group of banks suing TJX...

PREPAID MARKET TO GROW TO $421.5 BILLION BY 2010.(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... The prepaid market will grow 17.1% over the next three years, to $421.5 billion, according to a report released today by Waltham, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The closed-loop market will reach $239.9 billion, up from $171.2 billion...

HYPERCOM SEEKING MERGER PARTNERS AS 3Q REVENUE JUMPS.
November 9, 2007... Hypercom Corp., the Phoenix-based point-of-sale device maker, says it is talking to potential merger partners with the goal of competing better against San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone Holdings Inc. and France-based Ingenico, both POS device...

MERCHANT-ACQUIRING INDUSTRY ATTRACTING MORE ATTENTION.
November 9, 2007... Once a relatively little-understood industry, the merchant-acquiring business is poised to draw more attention to itself, concludes a report by Ann Kjos, an industry specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The report, released...

EBAY IS SELLING GIFT CARDS.
November 9, 2007... Online auction company eBay Inc. announced yesterday that it is offering gift cards in $25 and $50 denominations in stores around the country. The San Jose, Calif.-based company plans to distribute more than 1 million cards in 10,000 stores,...

CYBERSOURCE COMPLETES PURCHASE OF AUTHORIZE.NET.
November 9, 2007... CyberSource Corp., a Mountain View, Calif.-based payments gateway for large merchants, yesterday has completed its acquisition of Authorize.Net Holdings Inc. in a stock and cash transaction valued at more than $660 million. The purchase of the...

BRIEFS.(StoreFinancial)(Chase)(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... Global Cash Access Inc., a Las Vegas-based provider of cash access services for casinos, has named Scott H. Betts president, CEO and interim chief financial officer, succeeding Kirk Sanford, who is retiring to pursue other interests....

MASTERCARD STREAMLINES TOP MANAGEMENT.
November 9, 2007... MasterCard Worldwide today announced an organizational realignment aimed at streamlining top management and preparing for the retirement of Alan J. Heuer, chief operating officer, at the end of 2008. Heuer was appointed to the office of the CEO...

APPELLATE COURT: STATE-CONTRACTED COLLECTOR NOT EXEMPT FROM FEDERAL SUIT.(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Thursday that a collections agency operating as a contractor for state prosecutors cannot claim sovereign immunity from lawsuits, overturning a district court ruling. American Corrective...

COINSTAR NET INCOME GETS 72% BOOST IN THIRD QUARTER.(Financial report)(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... Coinstar Inc., which operates coin-counting and DVD vending machines and sells gift cards in the United Kingdom, reports that it generated $143.3 million in revenue in the third quarter ending Sept. 20, up 2.4% from $140 million in the same...

GLOBAL PAYMENTS OFFERING CURRENCY CONVERSION IN ASIA-PACIFIC.(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... Global Payments Inc., an Atlanta-based transaction processor, will offer currency-conversion services at the point-of-sale to its merchants in Malaysia and Taiwan by the end of the year, says Planet Payment Inc., the New York-based maker of the...

FISERV WILL CONTINUE HEALTH-CARE BANKING AND PAYMENTS SERVICES AFTER DIVESTITURE.
November 9, 2007... Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv Inc. says it will continue to provide health-care banking and payments products and services despite selling its other health businesses to UnitedHealthcare last week. Fiserv, a provider of information technology...

HISPANICS RECEIVE GIFT CARDS WITH HIGHEST VALUE.
November 9, 2007... Hispanics received gift cards with the highest average value, according to the Green Bay, Wisc.-based Comdata Corp. gift card survey of 802 respondents conducted in September. According to the survey, Hispanics received cards with an average...

E-PAYMENTS TO REPLACE CHECKS FOR HEALTH-CARE PAYMENT.(Survey)(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... Electronic payments will replace checks as the main form of health-care payer-to-provider payments by 2009, according to a report released in October by Milwaukee-based Metavante Technologies Inc. The report, entitled Metavante Payment Progress...

BRIEFS.
November 9, 2007... St. Petersburg, Fla.-based PSCU Financial Services, a credit-union service organization, announced today it has joined the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council as a participating organization. The Wakefield, Mass.-based council,...

PAY BY TOUCH FACES LEGAL PROBLEMS.
November 9, 2007... Despite a recent agreement with Shell Oil Co. to test biometric payments in Chicago (CardLine, 11/2), San Francisco-based Pay By Touch is facing corporate turmoil relating to control of the company amid financial issues and an involuntary...

CITI SUBPRIME WOES BOOST U.S. CARD PROFILE.
November 9, 2007... Citigroup Inc.'s revelation Sunday that it expects to write off $8 billion to $11 billion this quarter, due to a sharp drop in the value of securities tied to subprime mortgages, makes the performance of Citi's U.S. cards business last quarter...

CREDIT CARD ATTRITION DECLINES.
November 9, 2007... Credit card attrition continues to decline, according to research released Monday from Westbury, N.Y.-based Auriemma Consulting Group, but card issuers must stimulate activation and usage of a new card early, or risk its cancellation. According...

COMPUCREDIT LOSS TOPS $53 MILLION.
November 9, 2007... Investments in third-party asset-backed securities put CompuCredit Corp., an Atlanta-based card issuer that targets consumers with lower credit scores, into the loss column during the third quarter ended Sept. 30. The company lost $53.2...

VERIFONE DEBUTS PCI-COMPLIANT FUEL PUMP DEVICE.
November 9, 2007... VeriFone Holdings Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, says it has launched Secure PumpPAY, a device and software product to upgrade payment terminals on fuel pumps to make them more secure. VeriFone says more than...

MASTERCARD U.S. DEBIT GETS DOUBLE-DIGIT BOOST.(MasterCard International Inc.)(Financial report)(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... MasterCard Worldwide debit programs in the United States issued 108 million cards by the end of the third quarter of 2007, up 16% from 93 million cards in the third quarter of 2006, a company report says. During the quarter, which ended Sept....

RESTAURANT SERVES UP SCRATCH-AND-SNIFF GIFT CARDS.(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... Diners at Shoney's Restaurants can smell the company's strawberry pie when they scratch the photo on its new gift card. The company based in Nashville, Tenn., plans to offer hot fudge cake and pancake syrup scented cards by the end of the year....

BRIEFS.
November 9, 2007... Major health care company Aetna has extended its processing contract with First Data Corp. for Aetna's flexible spending account program, including point-of-care authorizations, auto-substantiation of eligible expenses, management of account...

CORRECTION.(Correction notice)
November 9, 2007... Comdata Corp. is based in Brentwood, Tenn., not in Green Bay, Wis., as reported in the Nov. 9 issue of CardLine. (c) 2007 CardLine and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cardforum.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

PCI COUNCIL TO MANAGE VISA BEST PRACTICES.
November 9, 2007... The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council will manage Visa USA's Payment Application Best Practices security measure starting early next year, the council announced today. The measure is designed to help software vendors develop...

REPORT: AMERICAN EXPRESS WILL BECOME A SIGNIFICANT COMPETITOR FOR VISA AND MASTERCARD.
November 9, 2007... American Express will become a significant competitor for Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide in the United States, according to a report released today by Boston-based Aite Group LLC. The report, titled "The Future of Card Networks: Gauging...

AMEX ENTERS REGISTERED TRAVELER AGREEMENT.
November 9, 2007... American Express announced yesterday it has entered an exclusive agreement to offer its corporate cardholders special registration and pricing for New York-based Verified Identity Pass Inc.'s Clear registered-traveler program. AmEx corporate...

NCR TO RESUME STOCK BUYBACK.
November 9, 2007... NCR Corp., the Dayton, Ohio, ATM manufacturer, will resume buying back its stock after its Dec. 6 "Analyst Day" conference in New York City, Bill Nuti, NCR's chairman, president and CEO, said during a third-quarter conference call with analysts...

OPTIMAL GROUP POSTS 3Q LOSS.(Financial report)
November 9, 2007... Losses from the cessation of processing online gambling transactions continue to harm Optimal Group Inc.'s financial results. In the Montreal-based transaction processor's third-quarter results released yesterday, the company reported a net...

HEALTH INSURER MAY BE LAUNCHING NEW GIFT CARD TREND.
November 9, 2007... Pittsburgh-based health insurer HighMark Inc. may create a trend with its Visa-branded health care gift card launched last week. Vance Hodnett, vice president of research financial services for Pelorus Gorup, a research firm based in Raritan,...

PENNSYLVANIA UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS MOVE FROM CHECK TO ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS.
November 9, 2007... Pennsylvania's Department of Labor & Industry moved to electronic payments for unemployment benefit check recipients Oct. 15. Unemployment recipients can continue to receive checks through February 2008, after which electronic payments will be...

BRIEFS.
November 9, 2007... Golden Plains Credit Union, which serves western Kansas, announced this week it is moving the processing of its 5,400 signature debit cards and more than 3,000 credit cards to Dallas-based TNB Card Services.... Indianapolis-based Simon Property...

VISA SETTLES WITH AMEX FOR $2.25 BILLION.
November 9, 2007... American Express Co. this afternoon announced an agreement in which Visa Inc. and some member banks will pay AmEx up to $2.25 billion. In exchange, AmEx will drop Visa as a defendant from a lawsuit that alleges Visa, MasterCard Worldwide and...

ANALYSTS: MASTERCARD MAY SETTLE SOON WITH AMEX.
November 9, 2007... The $2.5 billion settlement agreement Visa and some of its member issuers reached yesterday with American Express Co. may mean MasterCard Worldwide soon will settle with AmEx as well, observers say. AmEx had alleged in a lawsuit that...

REPORT: USING CARDS AS SAFETY NET ERODES ECONOMIC SECURITY.
November 9, 2007... American families are using credit cards to bridge the gaps created by stagnant wages and the higher cost of living, which is eroding their economic security, concludes a report published Wednesday by Demos, a New York-based non-partisan...

FED: THIRD-QUARTER CREDIT CARD DEBT GREW 7.6%.
November 9, 2007... Consumer credit outstanding rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.25% during the third quarter, and revolving credit, which is primarily credit card borrowing, increased at a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.6%, according to the Federal...

FED SURVEY: LENDING STANDARDS ON CARDS CHANGE LITTLE SINCE JULY.
November 9, 2007... U.S. banks reported little change in their lending standards on credit card loans since July, according to the Federal Reserve Board's October 2007 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. Survey results were released...

NCR HAD MORE THAN $1 BILLION IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS.
November 9, 2007... NCR Corp., the world's largest ATM manufacturer in terms of ATMs shipped last year, ended the third quarter with $1.033 billion in cash and cash equivalents, the company says. Company officials could not clarify what they meant by cash...

COMDATA TO OFFER DVD GIFT CARDS.
November 9, 2007... Comdata Stored Value Solutions Inc. announced today that it has agreed to offer DVD gift cards with New York-based digital publishing company Serious. The cards have a magnetic stripe on one side to hold the payment information and DVD content...

CHASE PAYMENTECH LAUNCHES HEALTH-CARE PAYMENT PLATFORM.(Preferred Health Technology Inc.)(Brief article)
November 9, 2007... Payment services provider Chase Paymentech and Preferred Health Technology Inc., a Dallas-based provider of electronic payment and transaction processing services for the health-care industry, have launched A-Claim, a health-care payment...

BRIEFS.
November 9, 2007... Citi Cards has hired Mark Webb, formerly of American Express Co., as executive vice president of new business development....Borders Group Inc., an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based book retailer, will use bankcard and Bill Me Later payment processing...

17 INDICTED AFTER FEDS BUST ALLEDGED MULTINATIONAL CARD FRAUD RING.
November 16, 2007... A federal grand jury in New York has indicted 17 people and a corporation on charges related to global trafficking of stolen credit card numbers, identity theft and using the Internet for other crimes. In a 173-count indictment, announced...

CERIDIAN, PARENT OF COMDATA, GOES PRIVATE IN $5.3 BILLION DEAL.
November 16, 2007... Two investment firms have closed a $5.3 billion deal to take Ceridian Corp., the Minneapolis-based parent company of Comdata Corp., private, Ceridian announced today. Brentwood, Tenn.-based Comdata processes and issues credit, debit and prepaid...