Of the total $2.52 trillion in outstanding US consumer debt, total outstanding revolving credit was down 3.3% in February from $800.8 billion in January to $798.6 billion. This compares to the year ago figure of 794.0. Revolving consumer credit plummeted from its peak of $973.6 billion in August 2008 by a staggering $179.6 billion, and…
American Express announced a line-up of offers and experiences to bring its film enthusiast Cardmembers the best of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, including advance ticket sales to a variety of independent film experiences and the full roster of Festival screenings at tribecafilm.com. American Express Cardmembers will also have access to special offers throughout the 12-day Festival. At the Tribeca Film Festival, film-loving Cardmembers who sync their eligible American Express Card with their Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare accounts at Sync.AmericanExpress.com can unlock exclusive savings and experiences to fuel their passion for film and entertainment. They can now “Tweet for Tickets;” have access to exclusive offers at select merchants in Lower Manhattan; and take advantage of offers available from Seamless and Redbox.
Payfone remote payment processing service backed by American Express, Verizon, Rogers Communications and several leading venture capital firms appointed Paul Tocatlian to its management team as VP of Engineering. He will continue to fuel the on-going growth in remote payments. Tocatlian is Vice President of Engineering at Payfone, and responsible for leading the company’s engineering organization. His responsibilities include technology vision, planning, and execution. Paul’s focus is engineering process and productivity and ensuring that the Payfone platform is designed to be easily integrated into merchant acquirer, financial institution and mobile operator systems. Prior to Payfone, Paul was Vice President of Engineering and Customer Support at Minerva Networks, where he was responsible for product planning, design, development and delivery, as well as day-to-day management of engineering, quality assurance, technical publications and customer support.
Reportedly, 56% of small business- up from 48% last fall- have a positive outlook on business prospects over the next six months just as the employment picture is improving, with 35% intending to hire full- or part-time employees (up from 31% in the fall). These findings, according to the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor.…
Harbortouch POS systems announced three new versions of its industry-leading free POS system program for the retail, spirits, and convenience store industries. They are titled Harbortouch “Retail,” Harbortouch “Spirits,” and Harbortouch “C-Store.” Harbortouch Retail is designed for retail environments of any size and includes a color/size/style matrix that allows merchants to build custom attribute matrices for a particular piece of apparel. This function helps to streamline order selection for a more efficient process. Additional features include gift receipts, registries, rentals and consignment functions, and layaway. Harbortouch “Spirits” offers many of the same benefits of the retail system but adds some features to meet the unique needs of wine, beer and liquor stores. A key functionality of this version of the POS software is an age verification process that prompts cashiers to ask for consumer identification and alerts them if the consumer can legally purchase age-restricted products. The system can also differentiate between single drinks and multi-packs when checking out customers. Another version of the POS software called Harbortouch “C-Store” meets the needs of the high-volume transaction environment found in convenience stores. It also includes the age verification function for age-restricted products along with many of the same features offered in the other packages.
mFoundry mobile banking and payments announced Conestoga Bank deployed its m-banking solution. The solution is now used by nearly 10 million users across more than 650 financial institutions nationwide. Conestoga Bank is now providing customers with a suite of mobile banking services that includes a smartphone app, a mobile Web service and an SMS/text banking service. The mobile Web and SMS banking features, the bank rolled out mobile deposit features as part of its mobile offering for customers, enabling smartphone users to take a picture of a check and deposit it into their accounts without having to go into the branch.
The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC), and WIMA, a worldwide event dedicated to NFC technology, have announced the winners in their Tap Into Innovation: NFC Global Competition 2012. Travel was the common theme in the judges’ selections, while the audience voted for NFC badges that…
Aperta, a leading provider of payment processing solutions, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. Aperta was formed by 5 former system architects and managers for Unisys Corporation’s payment processing division. This core team comprised Jim Murray, Martin Wylupek, Colin Best, Steve Meechan and David Henderson. All have been actively involved with Aperta and its…
Geezeo, a leading FinTech firm that offers online financial management (OFM) tools, personal financial management (PFM), and web-based marketing platforms to financial institutions, announced today that it has signed Michigan’s LOC Federal Credit Union. LOC will be provided with Geezeo’s exclusive integrated, white label PFM solution and unique engagement banking platform. “We’re excited to work…
Barclays “Pingit” person-to-person service for sending and receiving money using mobile phone numbers, is now available to the customers of all UK banks and building societies. It’s free to use and allows users to send and receive money simply using a mobile number, without the need to share bank details. Barclays “Pingit” has been downloaded over 400,000 times in its first eight weeks and it was the number one financial app in the UK Apple App Store in February. Now that the service is fully available to Barclays and non-Barclays customers, a range of additional uses for Barclays Pingit are planned for consumers and businesses in the coming months, as well as new features including joint account registrations and further business functionality. In response to strong customer demand, the service was expanded to 16 and 17 year olds with a current account at the end of February.
DirectCash Payments announced a cash dividend of $0.115 (11.5 cents) per share for the month of March, 2012. The dividend will be paid on May 31, 2012, to shareholders of record on April 30, 2012. This dividend is an eligible dividend for the purposes of the Income Tax Act (Canada). The Company’s policy is to…
IT provider Softcat is launching a new Cloud service – xStorm, a vulnerability scanning service that will help its clients to keep their public infrastructure secure against the threat of hackers and cyber criminals. The service uses a system that automatically scans a client organisation’s public-facing infrastructure once a month, gathering information about device operating…