Core credit card interest rates have remained pretty consistent throughout 2011. At the start of the recession average credit card APRs hovered around 16% and dropping to a rock bottom 12.64% back in 2010, encouraging a much-needed boost in borrowing. Over the past 9 months since the beginning of the year, however, rates increased and…
Andrea Forster has been appointed MasterCard Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer. Bringing to the table more than 10 years’ experience in various finance positions, most recently with Pepsi Bottling as Corporate Controller from 2000-2007 and VP, North America Finance from 2007-2008, Forster will head MasterCard finances. Prior to Pepsi Bottling Group, Andrea was vice president, Supply Chain Transformation, PepsiCo and she holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Providence College and is a certified public accountant.
American Express is delivering on-site benefits to Cardmembers and all tennis fans at the 2011 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. In its 18th year as a US Open partner, American Express is introducing several new programs, first to ever be done at any tennis major, including the US Open American Express Fan Experience, an interactive space featuring a digitized Serve Analysis; the American Express Court Curator for fans to customize their trip to the US Open; and an exclusive offer for American Express Cardmembers to use at concession stands and retail outlets on-site at the tournament, in honor of American Express’ partnerships with Facebook and Foursquare. American Express will provide tennis fans at this year’s Open with a unique space to help improve their game, get inside information about how to make the most of their day at the US Open, hear from experts including Chris Evert, and take advantage of Cardmember Concierge services, all at the US Open American Express Fan Experience.
U.S. Bank is making available real-time ATM card and check card alerts to its consumer and business cardholders’ mobile devices and computers. The real-time alerts range from suspicious activity being detected to cash being withdrawn from an ATM and are sent via SMS text message, email or both. Cardholders can select the alerts that will make it easier for them to stay informed and be in better control of their finances. Cardholders may also receive real-time alerts for international transactions, gasoline purchases, ATM withdrawals, declined transactions or for online, mail-order or telephone transactions where the card is not present.
On-Line Strategies integrated its advanced switching platform with Phoenix Managed Networks’ [PMN] encrypted, PCI-compliant transaction transport system. The combination of technologies from these industry-leading providers assures greater processing speed, reliability and flexibility for customers using dial-up, wireless and IP transaction origination from a wide variety of POS devices. Phoenix Managed Networks is a privately held payments company that was established to acquire HBNet, the secure transaction transport business previously owned by Hypercom.
CoreCard Software card management and boutique processing solutions is growing its private label solution with the conversion of a federal bank from outsourced processing to an in-house platform for retail private label credit cards. CoreCard software is now used for its private label cards processing. The CoreCard application products are built to sit on top of the CoreENGINE platform, and the power of the shared components embedded in this platform is leveraged across all of our products. The CoreENGINE platform provides instant fault-tolerance, scalability, and ease of use. The CoreCard private label solution is a solid tool for managing card portfolio. It offers a new Account Processing; card Issuing, Reissuing, Card Replacement; transaction Processing; and a flexible Reward And Loyalty Program.
B2B Soft announced that Cycle30 order-to-cash billing services selected its “Wireless Standard” for its POS deployment. Cycle30 selected the B2B Soft platform to complete the wireless point-of-sale function in its order-to-cash platform specifically for all of GCI’s 33 retail locations in fall 2011. Cycle30 provides wireless operators such as GCI with a turnkey platform for scalable and reliable converged billing that includes convergent charging, rating and balance management for existing and emerging services across a variety of markets. B2B Soft’s “Wireless Standard” POS and business management platform will provide a modular system with a range of business functions that include customer management, service fulfillment, billing and revenue management, service assurance, integrations, inventory management and business intelligence tools.
Electronic bills through online banking the internet can lead to enhanced cash flow and reduced customer care costs. Customers who receive electronic bills (e-bills) via a financial institution or the Con Edison website are more likely to make on-time payments, and utilize online self-service rather than costly customer service calls. These findings, according to a Fiserv survey of Con Edison customers, shows customers receiving e-bills via online banking were 22% more likely to make on-time payments and customers receiving e-bills at ConEd.com were 6% more likely to make on-time payments, when compared to paper bill recipients. Banking sites offer due-date reminders which may help customers pay their bills on time. Meanwhile, customers receiving e-bills via online banking were 64% less likely to call live customer service per month and customers receiving e-bills at ConEd.com were 39 percent less likely to call, when compared to paper bill recipients.
Broadridge Financial Solutions announced the launch of new functionality within its “PROactive” solution suite for the reconciliation and automated exception handling of ATM activity, improving banks’ accuracy and error detection by reconciling a range of ATM transaction processes including withdrawals and bank transfers. The new functionality includes cash replenishment, individual ATM transactions, banks’ balances, float cash, ATM networks and cash deposit machines (CDM). Banks also improve levels of customer service as failed ATM disbursements can be identified very quickly and erroneous debits to customer accounts corrected before these cause complaints.
Merchants increasingly are implementing Apple iPads at their POS. For example, Lowe’s is set to integrate 42,000 handheld devices at locations in the United States and Canada, like Home Depot, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters. Additionally, according to Tricia Duryee of the Wall Street Journal’s “All Things D,” Pacific Sunwear is working with New Jersey-based Global Bay to put iPads in 300 stores, with an additional 500 to 600 by next year.
ViVOtech NFC software and systems made available its new POS terminal for payments and NFC mobile commerce that could save eligible merchants more than $2 billion a year in annual PCI-DSS validation costs under a Visa Inc. initiative. ViVOtech’s “ViVOpay 8100” terminals accept traditional swipe cards with magnetic stripes, chip cards, contactless cards, and NFC-enabled mobile phones, as required by the Visa initiative announced last week to accelerate the migration to Eurocard-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) contact and contactless chip technology in the United States. The new ViVOpay 8100 includes ViVOtech NFC checkout technology that enables merchants to accept and process coupons, personalized offers, loyalty programs and payments through the merchant’s proprietary mobile applications.
GRGBanking gets the first ATM installed and online in CEC Bank, which was awarded a batch order contract of Through-The-Wall (TTW) Notes Dispenser H22N. The project is the first co-operation between the company and CEC Bank. GRGBanking submitted its proposal to the bank in December, 2010. Besides big ATM manufacturers, other medium competitors are also interested on this tender, treating as an important opportunity. In partnership with Romanian partner ServuS, the company made it through the tests and pilot. GRGBanking’s ATM will take about 10% of the bank’s ATM network and continues to expand its business network across Europe.