Electronic Payments Week articles from March 2005

Electronic Payments Week archives from March 2005

Major Payment Systems Manufacturer Is in Play.(Jana Partners L.P. forces Transaction Systems Architects Inc. for sale)
March 1, 2005... Two weeks ago, Transaction Systems Architects [TSA] received an unwelcome letter from JANA Partners LLC, a San Francisco-based investment fund, that amounted to "your money or your life." Either offer the company into a sale to a third party or...

Card Wars: Will Discover Win?(Discover Card Services Inc., GE Credit, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and First Data Corp. alliance)
March 1, 2005... The ancient Chinese philosopher of war, Sun Tzu, said that every battle is lost or won before it's fought: Look at who's fighting, what they're fighting with and how it's deployed, and you'll know the outcome, he said. In the months of...

Arab Bank Cease and Desist.(Office of the Comptroller of the Currency sued Arab Bank PLC for laundering terrorism related funds)
March 1, 2005... The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a cease and desist order against the New York branch of the Arab Bank late on Friday, Feb. 25. The net result will be that the branch, currently under scrutiny by the Treasury Dept.'s...

Interchange Rates Under Scrutiny.(Reserve Bank of Australia's regulations for debit cards)
March 1, 2005... The payments system board of the Reserve Bank of Australia--that nation's central bank--is taking a hard look at why interchange rates for Visa debit cards in that country shouldn't be dropped from their current levels of around AU$0.40 cents...

Who's Who.(Paul Ackerman appointed as treasurer in Wells Fargo & Co., Eric Benhamou appointed to board of directors of Silicon Valley Bancshares and James H. Blanchard elected to the board of American Bankers Association)
March 1, 2005... * Paul Ackerman was named treasurer at Wells Fargo & Co., responsible for interest rate risk management, funding, capital planning, and risk insurance. Last responsible for financial planning and analysis for the bank, Ackerman reports to chief...

Will the Card Companies Lose the Airlines?(airlines' cost management)
March 1, 2005... Air travel is one of the credit card industry's biggest income streams: According to the Airlines Reporting Corp., some $66 billion in airlines tickets were sold last year, about 85 percent of which were paid for with a credit card. But...

New To Market.(ACH Direct and Bank of the West contract, Captiva Software Corp. and FirstMerit Corp. contract for software)
March 1, 2005... * ACH Direct signed a deal with Bank of the West to beef up their electronic payment offerings. The deal will let BofW expand its cash management business to include multiple payment billing, check conversion, remote deposit and verification...

The Checklist.(Tidel Technologies Inc. sells ATM network to NCR Corp., eFunds Corp. earnings and First Data Corp. buys shares)
March 1, 2005... Ceridian Corp. [CEN] This human resources outsourcing company, owner of payments processor Comdata Corp. says it filed its 10-Q for the second and third quarters of 2004, an amendment #1 on a 10-Q/A to the first quarter of 2004, and an...

FinCEN's Latest Strategic Plan Changes The Agency's Focus.(Financial Crimes Enforcement Network)
March 8, 2005... Anyone who has ever wondered what the secretive Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) does for a living can relax. Sort of. In its 2006-2008 Strategic Plan, published Feb. 28, we learn that FinCEN officially is no longer merely the...

Electronic Bill Payment Going Mainstream.(CheckFree Corp.)
March 8, 2005... Electronic bill payment and presentment [EBPP] may finally be coming into its own after years of grinding out inches on the ground, while other so-called "killer apps" like "push" technology blazed across the sky--and flamed out. Last...

ChoicePoint in the Government's Crosshairs.(Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission's investigations against Derek Smith and Douglas Curling)
March 8, 2005... The search for the scapegoats in the weeks since the ChoicePoint ID theft story broke is now on. Both the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission think they may have found two--chief executive Derek Smith and president...

ZiLOG Has a Product for the Record Books.(Brief Article)
March 8, 2005... ZiLOG Inc. and USA Technologies Inc. say they have a gizmo called the eZ-APN module, a mobile, wi-fi-enabled authorization, payment and networking (APN) device that can apparently turn just about any non-PC embedded device into a point-of-sale...

MasterCard's 10-K.(MasterCard International Inc., earnings, cases)
March 8, 2005... MasterCard filed its 10-K last week and, aside from the financial details, detailed below, its recent deal with CitiBank, dated Dec. 31, 2004, was laid out--with specific fees and some other money-related details redacted, of course. The...

More Dangers on the Internet.(Brief Article)
March 8, 2005... Panda Software's PandaLabs reports that two new trojans appeared on the Internet on March 1. One, Tofger.AT, steals banking passwords, runs every time Internet Explorer is opened, and keeps track of where the computer's user goes on the...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
March 8, 2005... In our March 1 story on how the airlines can cut their payments-related expenses, Electronic Payments Week said that Edgar, Dunn & Co.'s director, Pascal Burg, thought the airlines could reduce the interchange fees they pay. The correct term...

Who's Who.(Patrick J. Corrigan joined Commercial Federal Corp. as executive vice president, Gregory M. Duckett joined the board of NBC Capital Corp. and John Owens appointed as senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Citizens Banking Corp.)
March 8, 2005... * Sofarianty Agustin, Jason Barrass, Amy Lee and Romi Mathur are joining JP Morgan Chase & Co.'s Treasury Services in the wake of its January announcement that it is buying Vastera, a trade logistics platform. Agustin, a Chase employee, will be...

Few Large Banks Are Check 21-Enabled.(regulations for banks)
March 8, 2005... Last summer, in the run-up to the day Check 21 would go into effect (Oct. 28), anyone following the legislation would have imagined that on Oct. 29, every bank and check processor in the country would be fully Check21-enabled--and check images...

New To Market.(BancTec Inc. enhances image quality product, TNS Inc. and Cedecra Group contract and SunGard Treasury Systems and Danske Bank A/S alliance)
March 8, 2005... * BancTec says it's upgraded its image quality product with Image Sentry 2.0. The company says the new version lets banks assess, verify, correct and manage check images like branch front and back counter, lockbox and reject repair in...

The Checklist.(CVB Financial Corp. acquires Granite State Bank)(Jack Henry & Associates Inc. acquires Tangent Analytics LLC)(Pacific Capital Bancorp. acquires First Bancshares Inc.)
March 8, 2005... Commerce National Bank [CNBF] This community business bank says it is expanding a previously announced rights offering to a full public offering of $15 million in common stock at $13 per share. After the registration statement is declared...

Capital One Buys Hibernia; Its Aim Is National Growth.(Capital One Financial Corp.)
March 15, 2005... With Capital One Financial Corp.'s purchase last week of Hibernia Corp. for $5.3 billion, the result is likely to be a nationwide Capital One Bank. Most of the talk has been about how Hibernia would diversify Capital One's asset base and...

Business Fosters Borrowing, Lending Without Banks.(zone of probable agreement facilitates electronic loaning)
March 15, 2005... The people who created Egg, the senior British online bank, have a new Web-based project--www.Zopa.com--an online lending and borrowing exchange. "This is an exceptionally cool thing, and it could be very successful," says Andrew M....

TSA Hires Big Time CEO.(Transaction System Architects Inc. appoints Phillip G. Heasley as chief executive officer)
March 15, 2005... Transaction System Architects Inc. (TSA) hired Phillip G. Heasley as its new president and CEO, replacing Gregory D. Derkacht, who remains with the company as executive vice president. Heasley also fills Derkacht's place on TSA's board. ...

Beverly Hills Bank Gets OCC Cease and Desist Order.(Office of the Comptroller of the Currency)
March 15, 2005... Beverly Hills Bank received the monthly Cease and Desist order from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Feb. 23, and paid out a $750,000 "money penalty." We say money penalty, the OCC's nomenclature, because recipients of such...

Wal-Mart Still Trying To Get A Bank.(Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to open an industrial loan corporation )(Brief Article)
March 15, 2005... Rumors are running wild in Salt Lake City that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is about to apply to open an industrial loan corporation (ILC) in Utah. ILCs operate like banks, offering the depositors federal deposit insurance, issuing credit cards, taking...

PayCircle Closing Down.(Brief Article)
March 15, 2005... PayCircle, which was founded by a computer industry consortium three years ago to develop an interoperable, open standards-based set of mobile payments specifications, says it's accomplished its mission, so it's shutting down on March 31. ...

Viisage Lands In Class Action Soup.(Viisage Technology Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2005... Eight class action suits alleging various securities laws violations have been filed against Viisage Inc. since March 8. The company says the allegations in the suits are baseless, and that it intends to fight them vigorously. Viisage makes...

Who's Who.(appointments and resignations, Morgan Beaumont Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2005... * Rod Braido, Morgan Beaumont Inc.'s vice president for western region operations, resigned from the company board last week, but will stay in his job. Replacing Braido is Theodore Misiewicz, named chief financial officer only a few weeks ago....

Hypercom In Big Trouble But May Pull Through.(huge revenue loss and class-action suits affect performance)
March 15, 2005... Hypercom Corp.'s chairman, Chris Alexander, is in a deep hole. His company, which manufacturers point-of-sale (POS) terminals, lost $8.7 million last year, on $255.2 million in revenue. It also lost a major customer in 2003 and has yet to...

New To Market.(SMART System Technologies, Bank Internasional Indonesia)
March 15, 2005... * ACH Direct says its Payments Gateway platform received final certification with Vital Processing Services, allowing ACH Direct to process retail, direct marketing, e-commerce, purchase card and recurring transactions over Vital's network....

The Checklist.(financial services news)
March 15, 2005... Beverly Hills Bancorp Inc. [BHBC] The parent company of First Bank of Beverly Hills, F.S.B., reported that for the year ended Dec. 31, 2004, net income was $25.6 million, or $1.20 per diluted share, on revenues of $34.5 million, compared...

Congressional Report Sheds Light on Money Laundering.(Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Riggs Bank N.A. and Augusto Pinochet)
March 22, 2005... The U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released its long-awaited report on money laundering last week, using the Riggs Bank N.A. scandal involving former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet as a proxy for general...

MBNA Attempts To Reclaim Growth In Saturated Market.
March 22, 2005... Wall Street analysts like MBNA Corp., a big company that at the end of last year had assets of $61.7 billion and net income of $2.67 billion, and even think it's undervalued. But it's in a saturated industry, struggling, much like its peers,...

Huge Hacking Theft Averted in London.(Sumitomo Mitsui Bank)
March 22, 2005... Britain's Hi-Tech Crime Unit stopped a planned $423 million computer bank heist against the London branch of the Sumitomo Mitsui Bank last week, catching one thief in the act of transferring about $27 million into an Israeli bank account,...

Desoer Testifies on Files Loss.(Barbara Desoer of BankAmerica Corp.)
March 22, 2005... Barbara Desoer, Bank of America's (BofA) global technology, service and fulfillment executive, testified before the Senate Banking Committee last week on her bank's embarrassing loss of 1.2 million General Services Administration (GSA)...

It's Wal-Mart/GE, Over the Discover Network.(Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and General Electric Co.'s contract with Discover Credit Corp.)
March 22, 2005... Anybody who has wondered what the real deal is between Discover, GE Consumer Finance, First Data and Wal-Mart can relax: Discover is the network over which Wal-Mart will send the payments made with its new credit card, issued by GE, and...

MasterCard Wants Eurozone Payments Standards.(MasterCard International Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... MasterCard has called on the European banking industry to publish a blueprint by the summer outlining plans for replacing cash payments across the Eurozone with plastic debit cards, which the card association says will save up to EUR50...

Who's Who.(appointments)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... * Gopi Chelliah was named partner and executive vice president, business process outsourcing and sourcing development, at Capco. He's based in London and joins Capco from Deutsche Bank. (Contact: Capco, 212-284-8812) * Philip B. Flynn...

Financial Supply Integration Still Years Off.(trends of credit cards industry)
March 22, 2005... Logistics is the greatest thing most people have never heard of. It doesn't just keep supermarket shelves filled and automobile factories humming-- it's turned Indianapolis and Nashville into fast-growing, prosperous cities, largely because...

New To Market.
March 22, 2005... * Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. says it has a three-year deal to provide a child support program payment receipt and processing system for the New Jersey Department of Human Services' Office of Child Support Services. The contract has...

The Checklist.(financial data of banking industry)
March 22, 2005... AirNet Systems, Inc. [ANS] This diversified transportation company with a large check courier operation says that for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2004, it had a net loss of ($34.1 million), or ($3.39) per share, on revenues of $106...

Interchange Rate Future In U.S. Is Up for Grabs.
March 29, 2005... Credit card operations in the U.S. may be facing some financial declines if trends lowering interchange rates, now appearing overseas, cross the ocean. If it happens, expect earnings per share to fall a bit at banks such as J.P. Morgan...

Identity Theft Cases Prompt Fed Privacy Guidance.(computer security )
March 29, 2005... The nation's bank regulators last week issued guidance to the institutions they oversee to direct them on how they should respond to a loss of customer data due to a computer security breach or other loss. The result is that regulated...

SunGard Data Systems On the Block.
March 29, 2005... SunGard Data Systems Inc. was sold last week for $11.3 billion to an investment group led by Silver Lake Partners and featuring a who's who roster of investment groups--Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Bain Capital, The Blackstone Group, and...

Credit Card Companies Go Tobacco-Free.(Brief Article)
March 29, 2005... All the major credit card companies, joined by PayPal, last week agreed not to accept payments made at Internet tobacco sites, almost all of which are violating numerous federal and state laws. The promise arose as part of a public/private...

OCC Orders Three To Cease-and-Desist.(Office of the Comptroller of the Currency)(United Americas Bank)(Asian Pacific Bank)
March 29, 2005... Last week, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said three banks had agreed to cease-and-desist orders related to money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act lapses--Asian Pacific Bank, City National Bank, and United Americas Bank,...

Transaction Systems Architects Update.(Brief Article)
March 29, 2005... Transactions Systems Architects (TSA), of Omaha, Neb., under attack by JANA Partners LLP (see Electronic Payments Week, March 1) has been attracting some attention from investors apparently intent on profiting from JANA's attentions. ...

Who's Who.(Appointments and Resignations)
March 29, 2005... * Daniel Ford joined the board of FFW Corp., parent of First Federal Savings Bank of Wabash and FirstFed Financial, Inc. Ford family members served on the bank board from 1944 to 1973. (Contact: FFW Corp., 260-563-3185) * Joseph W. Hoff...

New To Market.
March 29, 2005... * Bottomline Technologies says it's been designated a Five-Star Partner of Oracle Corp.'s Applications Users Group, the highest level partnership available from Oracle to any third-party solution provider, and that Oracle recently certified...

The Checklist.
March 29, 2005... Acacia Research Corp. [ACTG] This device-licensing company says its Financial Systems Innovation LLC unit has a new portfolio of non-exclusive licenses covering a patent portfolio that apply to credit card fraud protection. The patents...