The winners for the 2016 BAI Global Banking Innovation Awards were announced at BAI Beacon in Chicago. Showcasing top innovators within the financial services industry, the recipients were chosen out of the 15 finalist organizations that represent the most innovative global leaders changing the face of the industry. Innovators were awarded for excellence in a…
Belinvestbank, a bank in Belarus, and JCB International, the international operations subsidiary of JCB announced that they have signed a license agreement on merchant acquiring of JCB cards in Belarus. The agreement was signed by Gennady Sysoev, Chairman of the Board of Belinvestbank, and Kimihisa Imada, Deputy President of JCBI. Entering the market of Belarus…
Citibank reports the Costco loan portfolio has grown to over $14 billion at the end of Q3, up from approximately $10.6 billion at acquisition. Fitch says Citi reported a 0.83% return on assets (ROA) in the third quarter, results which are lower on a sequential basis and from those reported a year ago. Fitch noted…
Fiserv has ankled Devin McGranahan as president of its Billing and Payments Group, effective November 1st. McGranahan succeeds Rahul Gupta, who will leave Fiserv in December 2016 to pursue other interests. McGranahan brings more than 25 years of business and leadership experience to Fiserv. He most recently served as a senior partner at McKinsey and…
China UnionPay processed a total transaction volume of 881.9 billion yuan during the 7-day National Day holiday (Oct 1-7) and the total transaction number reached 570 million, growing by 36% and 14% year-on-year respectively. As for the use of UnionPay cards for tourism, the transaction number for domestic attractions tickets and hotels grew by 46%…
Wells Fargo (WFC) reported revenue growth on both a linked-quarter basis and a year ago basis, due to spread income growth from higher earning assets. On a period-end basis, WFC reported subdued loan growth at less than 2% on an annualized basis. WFC reported growth primarily in credit cards, automobile, and CRE, partially offset by…
Citi has reached a definitive agreement to sell its consumer banking business in Brazil to Itaú Unibanco/ The sale constitutes approximately US$2.8 billion in assets for Citi in Brazil and includes credit cards, personal loans and deposit accounts, as well as Citi Brazil’s retail brokerage business. Citi’s consumer banking operations in Brazil will continue to…
Synchrony Financial has inked a multi-year renewal of its program to provide consumer financing for hhgregg, a specialty retailer of home appliances, televisions, computers and tablets, consumer electronics, home furnishings, mattresses and related services. Synchrony has provided a consumer financing program for hhgregg through the hhgregg Credit Card for more than 17 years. Qualifying cardholders…
Since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was launched in 2011, more than 10% of U.S. households have received some sort of retribution for unfair and deceptive lending practices. Legal penalties now exceed $200 million and retribution exceeds $1 billion. Mercator Advisory Group’ says headlines of unfair and deceptive credit card practices make it hard to…
Tokyo-based JCB International and Bank of Bhutan (BOBL), the first and largest scale commercial bank in Bhutan, inked a deal BOBL to start accepting JCB cards at the bank’s merchants. With this launch, JCB cards are accepted at more than 480 locations and it covers 90% of POS terminals and ATMs in the market. Bhutan…
China’s UnionPay has inked a cooperation agreement with Swedbank to enable the merchants in several Nordic countries and the three Baltic states to accept UnionPay cards in two years, substantially expanding UnionPay’s acceptance scope in the region. Now, about two million merchants in Europe accept UnionPay cards, which satisfies tourists’ payments needs. Since this year,…
The Merchant Advisory Group (MAG) launched a mobile commerce tool to enable merchants to analyze the potential impact of mobile solution deployments on their business. MAG notes the mobile commerce environment is a rapidly changing landscape as nearly 80% of all phones in the U.S. are smartphones. The tool is intended to spark high level…