Influencers drive spending in the face of economic hardship

ECB calls for Visa - MasterCard rival

European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell has reinforced her commitment to a third European card scheme to compete with Visa and MasterCard and to ensure the success of the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA). In a recent speech at the European Financial Management & Marketing Association conference on cards and payments, Tumpel-Gugerell said: In my view, yet another ingredient necessary for the success of SEPA is a new European card scheme

VocaLink recasts as electronic payments player

With Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) objectives taking longer to implement than first thought and payments giants fighting with local networks over debit card acceptance, a number of less obvious providers are moving into the European payments sphere.

Country survey: Kenya

The success of m-payments in Kenya can provide a blueprint for its east African neighbours, driving electronic payments in a region that has struggled with its payments infrastructure for years. A currency bloc, slated to be implemented by 2012, could speed the process. Will Cain reports.

More outages as CBA, ANZ hit

Australian banks Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and ANZ both suffered systems glitches in recent weeks leaving customers unable to access funds ANZ customers were hit on Tuesday 24th August leaving retailers unable to process EFTPOS and credit card transactions between 11am and 2pm CBA customers faced difficulty on Monday 30th of August, unable to withdraw cash from their banks ATMs or use EFTPOS at retailers

Mellon gift cards pass 5 million mark

Non-banking card sales have hit 5 million for the first time at Mellon Technologies, a Greece-based card solutions provider. The company, whose private label card clients include Carrefour, Adidas, Attica Department Stores, Makro, Avin Oil, and EasyCruise, has sold more than 100 million cards, including those in the banking and wider public sector. Over the past 10 years the company has developed card-based solutions for different sectors in the Greek market, and has contributed to the implementation and support of card-based loyalty and gift card campaigns

Prepaid: The trouble with statistics

Consultancies have not had much luck predicting the growth of the prepaid market in recent years. The majority of estimates have proved over-optimistic, with variances of hundreds of percent. Will Cain reports on the problem predictions.

Country Survey: Italy

Italy has been the first market in Europe to truly embrace prepaid cards and they are now sending its payments market into overdrive. Italian consumers interest in prepaid stems from a traditionally cash-based society, concerns over security and a tax levied on ordinary current accounts. Will Cain reports.

Instant issuance proves a slow burner

For a technology which is based around speed and convenience, it is ironic that instant issuance has seen a slow take-up in the cards market. It has been available since the 1990s, and while it has gained traction in parts of the US and Asia, it has failed to catch on elsewhere. Louise Naughton reports.

Anti-trust probe threat sees Visa drop PINs for low-value purchases

Visa Inc has dropped a requirement that consumers enter PINs when using Visa-branded debit cards to make low-value purchases in the US Had Visa not dropped the PIN requirement, it would have been facing another anti-trust probe from the US Department of Justice.

MasterCard insists interchange suspension only temporary

MasterCard Europe has announced the temporary suspension of its European cross-border interchange fees to meet a European Commission (EC) deadline. In December 2007, the EC ruled that the interchange fee, which typically makes up around 1 percent of a credit card transaction, was illegal, and told MasterCard to stop levying the charge.

Region round up

China UnionPay plans to offer its card services to 30 countries around the world... The Times Group of India has launched an entertainment credit card... Emirates Islamic Bank (EIB), Skywards and Visa have joined forces... Approximately two million people in the UK have had their credit card limits cut... Capital One is to shed 750 jobs from its European headquarters...

BNP Paribas: the canny co-branders

French banks have been forced to reposition their cards businesses to combat the new threat that retailers pose in the consumer lending market. But BNP Paribas remains unfazed by the competition, according to its CEO of Personal Finance, Thierry Gattegno.

News Briefs

COMPANIES NCR spins off TeradataUS payments hardware and software vendor NCR has completed the spin-off of its data warehousing business Teradata, which is now listed as an autonomous company NCRs chairman and CEO, Bill Nuti, said NCR would now focus on self-service products including ATMs, retail-assisted POS and self-checkout systems, automated bill payment systems and airline, hotel and hospital self-check-inout kiosks POS kiosks, internet and mobile devices are rapidly becoming channels of choice for consumers, Nuti added.ATMsDiebold launches bulk depository module for ATMsUS payments equipment manufacturer Diebold has unveiled its new bulk document intelligent depository module (IDM) for incorporation into its Opteva ATMs

News Digest

BoA joins existing strategic investors Motorola, PayPal, and NCR Corporation, and venture capital firms GRP Partners, Ignition Partners and Apax Partners.Mobile banking is a critical channel for our customers now and into the future, said BoA e-commerce and ATM head Lance Drummond This investment further solidifies the importance of having a strong mobile technology platform.BoA already boasts more than 1 million mobile banking customers and over 100,000 users daily on peak usage days.Founded in 2004 mFoundry numbers among users of its mobile payments technology Citibank and BB&T, the 14th largest financial-holding company in the US.ONLINE PAYMENTSHappy birthday PayPalOn 23 June PayPal celebrated its 10th anniversary

News Briefs

NEWS BRIEFS: CompaniesMasterCard settles with Amex: MasterCard is to pay American Express (Amex) $1.8 billion to settle a claim it had illegally blocked Amex from the US bank-issued card business...Contactless PaymentsUK to keep time with PayPass: MasterCard is to market the UK's first watch equipped with its PayPass contactless payment technology...Payment Proessing BPC shines in Gartner ratings: Research company Gartner had high praise for Russian technology dveloper BPC Banking Technologies in its latest MarketScope for Multiregional Card Management Software study conducted in July...Remittances Migrant remittances under pressure: The US economic slowdown is having a negative impact on the US to Latin America migrant remittance market, reveals research by teh inter-American Development Bank (IADB)... Security Lloyds TSB selects IdenTrust: UK bank Lloyds TSB has selected US identity verification security company IdenTrust to provide digital identity and digital signing services for its corporate banking customers using the BACSTEL-IP payment network...

Barclaycard 'to partner with BA'

Barclaycard has signed a major partnership agreement with British Airways allowing it to provide credit cards to British Airways Executive Club customers, Cards International has learned.The agreement strengthens the issuers existing agreement with British Airways in Germany and will be launched in relevant markets later this year. Initial details are sketchy but a source familiar with the deal said it did not include the UK, where British Airways already works with American Express, and is not thought to impact British Airways other working relationships like its partnership with JPMorgan Chase in the US.

A market of extremes

Kazakhstan may have been placed on the comedy map by the character of Borat, but in payment circles at least, the country has been acknowledged as a major growth hotspot for payment cards and electronic banking Kazakhstan, on the border with Russia, is a country rich with natural mineral and energy resources, which has helped Kazakhstans GDP to achieve an average annual growth of around 10 percent since the beginning of this decade.

M-Cube moves forward in style

The profile of UK prepaid and payment solution provider M-Cube is on the rise following the hugely successful launch of its ground-breaking Aspinall Foundation prepaid card earlier this year. However, M-Cube is setting its sights beyond the prepaid sector, as Victoria Conroy reports.

Credit contagion spreads to Canada

It was only a matter of time before credit losses spread across the USCanada border, and a new report from business advisory firm Deloitte is highlighting that the pace of the downturn is taking many issuers by surprise The credit quality contagion has spread from the United States into Canada, as a new study paints an increasingly grim portrait of that nations card market.