With the total outstanding revolving US consumer credit up 4.5% in June from last year to an adjusted $850B, it continued to erase all positive momentum seen in 2013. Continuing to grow, the July revolving credit outstanding is still not as high as the year ago figure of over $1trillion and is much better than…
NCR announced a four-year partnership with the Atlanta Falcons, whereby Official Falcons Gear, the Atlanta Falcons Retail arm, will use NCR Netkey Endless Aisle solution to allow fans on the main level of the stadium to order merchandise from designated NCR Express Zones and then pick it up any time they want before the game ends, dramatically cutting time spent waiting in line. NCR Wayfinding interactive self-service solution will be installed at the stadium, to make it easier for fans to find their way around the large, multi-tier stadium with a touch of the finger. NCR and the Falcons are also kicking off a series of programs for NCR employees and the community. Beginning in the spring of 2014 associates from the Atlanta Falcons Physical Performance Department will work with the NCR Human Resources Department to develop a wellness program specially designed for NCR employees.
Citi Retail Services announced a long-term extension of their successful 22-year credit relationship with Staples, the world’s largest office products company and second largest Internet retailer. Citi Retail Services will continue to provide processing services and customer service support for all of Staples’ private label credit card programs. Staples offers three private label credit programs to meet the needs of businesses and organizations of all sizes, as well as individual consumers: The Staples Business Credit Account with Revolving Terms, the Staples Commercial Billing Account with Net Pay terms, and the Staples Personal Credit Account. Each credit program has no annual fee, and can be used for purchases at Staples stores, by catalog and online at Staples.com.
The card personalisation validation (CPV) test tool co-developed by Barnes and Fime has been qualified by MasterCard Worldwide to meet its latest CPV requirements version 6.2 (2013). The test tool – which is available in four forms, Barnes CPT 3000v3 CPV module, Barnes CAT 3000v3 CPV module, Barnes CPT PRO Issuer FIME-CPV and PersevalPRO FIME-CPV – helps issuers to reduce product time to market by enabling pre-certification of MasterCard and MasterCard PayPass™ cards. Banks, card manufacturers and personalisation bureaus can purchase the tool to test a product’s adherence to MasterCard standards prior to applying for the formal CPV service. The test tool has been qualified by MasterCard after extensive qualification tests, which confirmed that the tool collectively incorporates the personalisation functionality and security requirements outlined by the payment system in June 2013. This includes support of M/Chip Advance version 1.1 and Mobile MasterCard PayPass M/Chip 4 version 1.0 products as well as specific CPV requirements for the United States market. The tool has also been enhanced to automatically perform tests on all card interfaces – magnetic stripe, contact and contactless – without manual intervention.
Jack Henry & Associates technology solutions and payment processing services primarily for the financial services industry has expanded its relationship with IT-Lifeline which enabled the addition of Centurion Enterprise-Level Recovery to its suite of disaster preparedness and recovery solutions. Centurion Enterprise-Level Recovery is an enterprise-wide data protection and recovery solution for Windows servers and their resident data. This cost-effective, secure data vaulting service supports Windows-based core systems, complementary banking solutions, and ancillary business systems such as email and office document platforms. The disk-based data protection and recovery services enable financial institutions to enhance their business continuity planning and testing, and expedite disaster response with immediate data access and recovery and local data restores. Centurion Enterprise-Level Recovery provides offsite data storage, eliminates the time and cost associated with tape-based recovery, provides workstation access from any location with an Internet connection, and is compliant with the FFIEC requirements for progressive and periodic testing of business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.
Online identity proofing service miiCard launched Certified Digital Bank Statements as part of its verified online identity service at Finovate Fall 2013. Financial and professional service companies can now use miiCard Certified Digital Bank Statements for underwriting, risk assessment and responsible lending decisions. Certified Digital Bank Statements are user-controlled components of a verified miiCard identity. Upon request, miiCard members can authorize financial institutions or professional service companies to access one of two different levels of information. With miiCard’s Identity as a Service (IDaaS) platform and Certified Digital Bank Statements, businesses can quickly verify an individual can afford a loan or qualify for a service.
Zuora continued expansion of its executive management team with the addition of Keith Costello, who will join as Zuora’s Senior Vice President of Global Services. An enterprise technology executive with twenty-five years of experience, Costello previously served in senior executive roles at Oracle, Siebel Systems, and at SAP. Guillaume Vives, who previously held the position of Senior Vice President of Professional Services, has been named Senior Vice President of Strategy and Product Management. Keith Costello was with SAP, where he held a variety of senior leadership positions, including Executive Vice President and General Manager in SAP’s business analytics and global services divisions. At Siebel Systems, Costello served as Group Vice President of Global Services, and at Oracle as Vice President of Oracle Consulting.
Equens was elected by the Finnish OP-Pohjola Group as new card processing partner. Both parties signed a long-lasting contract for card services.It is highly exceptional that a bank actually acts upon the SEPA European level playing field by switching from processor. With OP-Pohjola as new client for card-related processing services Equens will create a clear footprint in the Northern European cards market. Expectations are that the first card transactions will be processed in Q4 2014. OP-Pohjola already had an agreement with Equens for the processing of SEPA payments as well as their regular cross-border euro payments since 2008. With this new agreement OP-Pohjola Group will also entrust their debit and Visa Electron card processing to Equens. Equens card and payment processor processes 10.4 billion payments and 4.4 billion card transactions, operating over 61 million payment cards, 873,000 payment terminals and 21,000 ATMs.