Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor Robert McKinley, with 33 years experience covering payment cards and payment systems, is Senior Analyst/Editor for CardFlash and other payments-related publications. He is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. McKinley served as an expert witness in 100+ litigations including two multi-$billion trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, chaired multiple payments conferences, hired as consultant by Fortune 100 companies and several overseas financial institutions. Full Bio: www.rbm4.com

Teasey Mobile Selects Verifone

6, Country, NIGERIA, PriorityLeave a comment

VeriFone Mobile Money is pleased to announce that it has been selected by Teasy Mobile (“Teasy”) in Nigeria to widen mobile money services and make them more relevant to local needs. VeriFone Mobile Money will deploy its retail enablement solution integrating the mobile wallet, banking, and telecommunication provider networks with the point-of-sale (“POS”). Teasy will work closely with local industry players to roll out VeriFone contactless POS devices as part of the solution.

SecureBuy and Fico Partner on CNP Fraud Solution

6, Country, Priority, UNITED STATESLeave a comment

SecureBuy global payment fraud prevention created a new frictionless payment fraud solution for mobile and online card-not-present (CNP) payment processing, powered by technology from FICO, a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company. This new SecureBuy solution includes powerful, analytics-based fraud detection technology originally developed by FICO for credit and debit issuing banks. This technology is used in FICO® Falcon® Fraud Manager, the world’s leading fraud management solution that protects more than 2.5 billion payment cards worldwide. The new solution integrates FICO’s proven self-calibrating analytics and global intelligent profiling with SecureBuy’s powerful physical attribute authentication to create a new industry performance benchmark for frictionless payment authentication.

Opus Bank Expands Arizona Banking Team

7, Country, Priority, UNITED STATESLeave a comment

Opus Bank announced Scott Dickman as its Senior Managing Director, Commercial Business Banking – Arizona. Bringing to the role 36-years experience, Dickman is Opus’ first commercial banker in Arizona and is responsible for expanding Opus’ commercial client base in the Phoenix metropolitan region. He joins Opus Bank most recently from Comerica Bank where he served as Senior Vice President, Market President and Commercial Banking Leader in the Arizona market. From 2008 through 2012, Mr. Dickman served as SVP, Commercial Banking for Arizona Bank & Trust where he also was a member of the bank’s Senior Leadership Team and led the commercial business group, including Commercial Banking, Treasury Management, and Small Business.

Optimal Payments Launches NETELLER in US

8, Country, Priority, UNITED KINGDOMLeave a comment

Optimal Payments Plc. announces the launch of an all-new NETELLER® online payment processing service. Working through a federally-insured U.S. financial institution sponsor, Optimal Payments is bringing these services to the U.S. marketplace. The NETELLER service and Net+® Card in the U.S. leverage the wealth of experience that Optimal Payments brings to the payments processing markets. Consumers already use NETELLER and the Net+ Card outside of the U.S. to safely and conveniently pay and receive funds for products and services online.

Parking Boxx Integrates EMV Payment Gateway

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Parking BOXX announced today their partnership with CreditCall. Parking BOXX will use CreditCall’s EMV-ready payment gateway in the Parking BOXX gated, multi-space, pay-by-phone, cashier and citation parking systems. The systems will be installed across North America with sites already live. CreditCall’s industry-leading card payment solutions are available across multiple channels, including-Multi-Space, Pay-on-Foot, Smartphone and web-based parking in the UK, USA and Canada. The company processes credit and debit card payments securely from unattended parking machines, as well as from phone-based and online parking reservation systems.

Fime gets JCB contactless terminals accreditation

10, Country, JAPAN, PriorityLeave a comment

Fime is the first and only laboratory accredited to provide functional testing services for JCB’s new generation of contactless terminals. In addition to offering testing services to the marketplace on behalf of an international payment brand based in Japan, the JCB-approved EVAL test tool developed by FIME is also available for purchase from its network of international offices as an off-the-shelf product for in-house testing. FIME has been working with JCB as an accredited integration testing laboratory since the launch of JCB J/Smart, JCB’s EMV Programme in 2005.

TSB Deploys NCR to Update Its Retail Banking

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NCR announced that TSB is installing 80 new NCR SelfServ ATMs in just three months across Britain as it transforms its retail banking network to improve banking services for its customers. Located in communities that range from Aberdeen to the Isle of Wight and Swansea to Norwich, the ATMs being installed by NCR will be free to use and available before the end of April 2014. For people wanting to ‘check their cash and dash’, TSB ATMs will enable them to check their balance, withdraw cash and manage their PIN. The ATMs also offer a host of other services, including bill payment, ordering of postal statements and mobile phone top-ups. SelfServ ATMs are designed to create a bigger visual impact on the street, and deliver a faster service and a more engaging experience for consumers. In the future, the contactless card capabilities will allow customers to carry out small transactions quickly and securely, thereby decreasing transaction time, cutting down queues and improving service. In addition, the new NCR SelfServ ATMs are Windows 7 ready – an important feature with Windows XP support from Microsoft expected to end in April 2014.

Moneris to accept UnionPay cards

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Moneris Solutions and UnionPay International entered into an agreement regarding Moneris’ acceptance of UnionPay cards beginning later this year. The number of merchants accepting UnionPay cards in the global market has shown a tremendous increase, giving UnionPay cardholders at home and abroad a network of convenient card use. Moneris and UPI will significantly expand this network in Canada with Moneris’ enablement of UnionPay card acceptance. Moneris is expected to launch UnionPay card acceptance as part of its service offerings to merchants in fall 2014.

CARD FEE INCOME AS A % OF TOTAL INCOME REMAINS FLAT

1, Country, Priority, UNITED STATESLeave a comment

In their series of weekly year-end card industry trend reports R.K. Hammer now discusses how fee income continues to perform in terms of top line revenue contribution. For decades, interest income on prime/super prime cards had always contributed the largest portion of the card industry’s revenue streams; just the exact opposite for subprime cards, though, where fees have always been the higher piece of total income. As reported earlier, the line between interest income and fee income for prime/super prime accounts has been narrowing substantially in recent years; with lower revenue in many cases coming from interest and an increasingly higher portion derived from fees. That trend continued again in 2013.

VerifyValid Turns iPhones into Checkbooks

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In an effort to revamp the payments process for today’s businesses and consumers, VerifyValid, an innovator in providing electronic check payments for businesses, consumers, financial institutions and their customers, has launched its Mobile Checkbook app in the Apple App Store. The app provides consumers and businesses alike with a simple-to-use mobile payment channel that avoids card interchange fees and provides the security and convenience of checks. The Mobile Checkbook expands the VerifyValid portfolio, especially for small businesses and consumers, by making the checkbook the most portable form of payment available.

oti sells Intercard System Electronics

5, Country, ISRAEL, PriorityLeave a comment

On Track Innovations Ltd. (oti) has sold its wholly owned German subsidiary, Intercard System Electronics GmbH, to a private party. Intercard manufactures electronic assemblies and devices, including oti’s NFC readers and other non-oti related products. The sale of Intercard includes an upfront payment of EUR 700,000 to oti and then future debt payments of certain amounts, as well as preferred pricing for Intercard services for the ongoing manufacturing of oti readers.