Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor Robert McKinley is an analyst of the payments industry on a daily basis for 32 years covering payment cards and payment systems from both the business side and the consumer side. McKinley is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. In his prior position, McKinley has participated in more than 10,000 documented news media interviews, testified as an expert witness in two separate $billion+ U.S. anti-trust trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, assisted the GAO with paymentsIMG_2006 (1).jpeg reports, chaired numerous business conferences and provided C-Suite opinion to a multitude of Fortune 500 companies. In retirement, he has continued developing and funding digital media assets as well as contributing payments related analysis/content to a broad list of online publishers, including CardFlash, CardTrak and CardData. McKinley is also a national certified mentor with the non-profit SCORE organization with a focus on assisting Fintech startups. www.robert-mckinley.com

Digital River to Provide Payment Services for Morinda

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Digital River Commerce-as-a-Service solutions signed a global payments agreement with Morinda direct-selling. Morinda is using the Digital River World Payments solution to build a payments program that supports online sales of its lifestyle products across Russia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic. The Digital River solution will offer Morinda customers online credit card payments in seven different local currencies, including Russian ruble, Hungarian forint, Latvian lats, Lithuanian litas, Polish złoty, Romanian leu and Czech koruna. Through Digital River World Payments, Digital River offers online merchants more than 180 international and local payment options, and over 170 transaction and display currencies. In 2013, the company processed more than $30 billion in online transactions.

Link Surveys on ATMs, GBP5 Dispensing

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Link cash machine network announced a new initiative that allows customers to suggest a cash machine that they would like to dispense £5 notes. Being able to withdraw fivers from cash machines is useful for some customers, particularly those on tighter budgets. By completing a form on the LINK website, anyone can suggest an existing cash machine that they’d like to be able to withdraw £5 notes from. LINK will then pass the request on to the relevant cash machine owner, for consideration.

Karali Implements NCR POS Software, Hardware

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NCR announced Karali Ltd., one of the largest Burger King franchises in the U.K., has chosen its software and hardware solutions to help improve customer experience and the efficiency of its business across its 56 restaurants. Selected for its strong U.K. presence and innovative solutions, NCR will provide Karali with its latest NCR Aloha hospitality software suite, as well as NCR Pulse Real-Time and NCR Restaurant Guard to provide the latest SaaS-based mobile analytics engines. NCR has also deployed hardware that includes the NCR P1230 point-of-sale (POS) and a kitchen management system. The comprehensive suite of NCR software will help Karali provide insight into how the business is performing and customer engagement.

Visa / MasterCard Q1 Delinquency

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Credit quality for VISA and MasterCards (V/M) issued by the top four U.S. bank credit card issuers continues to improve. The 30+ day delinquency rate in the first quarter declined 16 basis points from the prior quarter and 52 basis points from one-year ago. According to CardData, the average 30+ delinquency rate among the top U.S. issuers for the first quarter stood at 2.64%, compared to 3.16% for Q1/2013 and 2.80% for the final quarter of 2013.

CHARGE Anywhere mPOS Solutions Now Visa Ready

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CHARGE Anywhere mPOS solutions have been approved by the Visa Ready Program. The Visa Ready Partner Program for mPOS is designed to help device manufacturers, application developers, merchants and acquirers to build and implement a reliable, convenient, and secure mobile point of sale experience. CHARGE Anywhere’s mobile payment application with Chip & PIN and magnetic stripe transaction capture meet Visa’s requirements. CHARGE Anywhere’s mobile solutions feature a PCI-validated secure mobile payment application, point-to-point encryption, and payment gateway services.

EVERTEC Reports First-Quarter 2014 Results

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EVERTEC posted 1Q/14 total revenue of $87.2 million with an adjusted net income up 16% to $32.0 million from the year ago period. Revenue was flat compared with the year ago period of $87.3 million. Merchant Acquiring net revenue was $19.3 million, an increase of 10% compared with $17.5 million in the prior year. Revenue growth in the quarter was predominantly driven by an increase in transaction volumes.

i2C Appoints Global Prepaid GM, International

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i2c payment processing announced that Scott Salmon has joined the company as General Manager, International to lead i2c’s continued growth in Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa (APCEMEA). Salmon brings over 25 years of business experience to this strategic role, including more than 20 years in payments and prepaid. He was Head of the Visa Prepaid Products division for the past five years. Prior to that he oversaw Visa’s San Francisco-based Global Prepaid Market Development team. Before Visa, Mr. Salmon was engaged in a variety of consulting and product management roles in the retail banking sector.

JCB Dreamcard

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The only payment card brand based in Japan is bringing a new middle market credit card to Vietnam. The new JCB Dreamcard is geared towards moderate income customers of Ho Chi Minh City-based Vietnam Techcombank. The co-branded credit card is being offered to customers with an average monthly income from 4 million VND (Vietnamese Dong) or US$188. Techcombank Dreamcard cardholders will receive a credit limit of up to 2 months salary with this card. The minimum repayment amount starts from 10% of outstanding balance.

BPC Banking Technologies Announces New Partnership

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BPC Banking Open System payment solutions for the global financial industry signed a new agreement with HP. BPC has been selected by HP as one of its strategic high performance payments solution worldwide and under the terms of the agreement, BPC’s SmartVista payments solution will be offered by HP on an outsourced basis to its customers worldwide. SmartVista is a scalable, secure and integrated suite of sophisticated applications covering every aspect of electronic payments processing. Using a visionary design to deliver unrivalled flexibility SmartVista also provides high performance authorization switching and routing, full ATM and POS management, comprehensive card management, advanced fraud prevention, loyalty program definition and management, card personalization and production. SmartVista also provides flexible billing and merchant management, integrated internet and mobile banking.

Cardlytics to Speak at Big Data Week Atlanta

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Cardlytics Card-Linked Marketing will be speaking at Big Data Week Atlanta. Marketing Research is facing both a challenge and an opportunity as Big Data technologies have entered the field, bringing new approaches to gaining customer insights and understanding consumer behavior. This informative roundtable discussion ” which brings together thought leaders and industry experts from technology companies, research firms, and academia ” will discuss trends, challenges, and opportunities in the research field. Big Data Week global platforms brings together a global community of data scientists, data technologies, data visionaries, and data businesses spanning six major commercial, financial, social, and technological sectors.

USA Technologies Recognized by Frost & Sullivan

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USA Technologies wireless, cashless payment and M2M telemetry solutions has been awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2014 North American Customer Value Leadership Award in Financial Services and Retail M2M Communications. Based on Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practice Research findings, each year Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. The award recognizes USA Technologies’ inordinate focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and, ultimately, customer base expansion.

Boku Signs Global Mobile Payments Partnership with Deutsche Telekom Group

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Boku carrier billing-based mobile payments signed an agreement with Deutsche Telekom Group mobile network operators. This expands on a previous agreement between the two in Germany, Deutsche Telekom’s primary market, to cover the MNO’s entire user base in Europe of over 140 million subscribers across 14 different markets. The agreement establishes Boku as a strategic partner powering Deutsche Telekom’s payments offerings, provides the company with an advanced mobile payments API, and gives customers the ability to pay for digital goods and services simply using their existing mobile phone account. Merchants offering carrier billing-based mobile payments will generate incremental revenue from consumers who find mobile the easiest way to pay, and attract new consumers who previously were unable or unlikely to pay via other payment options, such as credit and debit cards.