Visa gathered 25 Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls from around the world for a two-day Team Visa Summit and innovation showcase at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco. The Summit kicked-off Visa’s year-long program which supports Olympic and Paralympic global athletes as they train for the 2016 Games.
Danish payment management company Pensio is undertaking a major relaunch and rebranding exercise and highlighting the evolution with a move to new offices in Copenhagen. Founded in 2008, the company has seen continuous growth with its breakthrough payment solutions. The new name of AltaPay is to underline the company’s new global ambitions.
Visa kicked off its social marketing campaign, generating national support from countries far and wide through Facebook, Youku and Sina-Weibo in China, VKontakte in Russia, YouTube and Twitter (US). This will inspire Team Visa athletes at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Since the campaign launched in May, fans have cheered in the form of liking the Visa Facebook page, submitting photos, videos and text cheers and performing one-click cheers through Visa’s Cheer application on Facebook, viewing and sharing video content on YouTube, as well as including the campaign’s hashtag (#VisaGoWorld) on Twitter (@TeamVisa) and cheering through partner websites. The campaign has seen 1.9 million fan “Likes” on Visa’s Facebook page; 400,000 cheers for 69 Team Visa athletes in the form of a one-click cheers and text, photo or video submissions; and 25.7 million views of Visa’s Go World commercials, behind-the-scenes athlete content and consumer-generated cheer videos.
Visa is set to sponsor four new U.S. Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls on their journey to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games for a total of 10 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls. Visa-sponsored athletes and their inspiring stories will be featured prominently throughout Visa’s Olympic-themed marketing campaign – Go World – to connect with cardholders and help drive preference for and usage of Visa products worldwide. Visa will support more than 50 individual athletes including Olympic gold medalists Yelena Isinbaeva (Russia), Emanuel Rego (Brazil) and Valerie Adams (New Zealand) along with national teams from more than 20 countries, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, United Kingdom, South Africa and Russia.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Sens. Charles Schumer and Mark Udall are
reintroducing credit card reform legislation. The “Credit Cardholdersâ
Bill of Rights Act of 2009” seeks to ban arbitrary interest rate
increases, due date “gimmicks,” “excessive” fees and other “misleading”
terms. The new bill also requires card companies to fairly credit and
allocate payments and enable cardholders to set limits on their credit.
Rep. Maloney notes that the new bill sets no rate caps, fees, or price
controls, nor does it dictate any business models to card companies.
Last September, the “CCBOR” (HR 5244) passed the House, 312-112 but died
in the Senate. It would have banned universal default, double-cycle
billing, and retroactive rate hikes. In December, the Federal Reserve
released final regulations that would ban many of these practices, but
the new rule does not take effect until July 2010. The CCBOR introduced
this week would take effect 90 days after the President signs it.
Atlanta-based InComm Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire NJ-based DataWave Systems for $36 million in cash. DataWave is a provider of prepaid and stored-value delivery systems in Canada with operations in the U.S. InComm plans to integrate DataWave’s 10,000 retail locations and 6,000-plus POSA terminals located in Canada and the U.S. into its network of more than 145,000 retail locations. DataWave will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of InComm. Josh Emanuel, DataWave chairman and CEO, will remain as president of the InComm subsidiary. InComm offers financial debit cards, gift cards, music downloads, ring tones, games, long-distance cards, online games, broadband, digital television as well as bill payment solutions. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
British Columbia-based DataWave Systems is being acquired by Atlanta-based InComm Holdings for $36 million in cash. DataWave is a provider of prepaid and stored-value delivery systems in Canada with operations in the U.S. InComm plans to integrate DataWave’s 10,000 retail locations and 6,000-plus POSA terminals located in Canada and the U.S. into its network of more than 145,000 retail locations. DataWave will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of InComm. Josh Emanuel, DataWave chairman and CEO, will remain as president of the InComm subsidiary. InComm offers financial debit cards, gift cards, music downloads, ring tones, games, long-distance cards, online games, broadband, digital television as well as bill payment solutions. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
New Jersey-based DataWave Systems posted revenue of $7.7 million in the first calendar quarter, a 69% increase over one-year ago. Net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005 included non-recurring costs of $459,000 related to the termination of the company’s proposed merger with Integrated Data Corp. DataWave develops prepaid and stored-value programs and merchandising solutions.
American Express has launched a promotion to offer advance purchase tickets of Broadway’s upcoming “The Odd Couple” to AmEx cardholders via the new AmEx/Yahoo Broadway Web site. For the Early-on-Sale period, starting June 6 and continuing through July 4, tickets will be available only to American Express Cardmembers and can only be purchased through American Express’ newly-minted Broadway Web site, American Express presents Broadway, Live at Yahoo! or by calling Ticketmaster. American Express Company is a diversified worldwide travel, network, and financial services provider founded in 1850.
San Diego-based Cubic Corporation has created a new business unit called Cubic Parking Systems. The new subsidiary follows the acquisition of the assets of Vancouver-based Lexis Systems and Quebec-based Traf-Park. With the combined installed customer base of Lexis and Traf-Park, Cubic Parking Systems has more than 2,200 pieces of equipment installed for almost 200 customers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The North American parking equipment and system control market is more than $200 million per year and is poised for growth as municipalities move away from single-space, coin-operated on-street meters to multi-bay meters that take contactless smart cards as a form of payment.
Cubic Corporation has acquired the assets of Vancouver-based
Lexis Systems, including the acquisition of intellectual property, technology, the complete product line and software suite, inventory and the operations. The assets from Lexis Systems, together with the recently acquired Traf-Park, comprise a new business unit for Cubic Transportation Systems, called Cubic Parking Systems. With the combined installed customer base of Lexis and Traf-Park, Cubic Parking Systems has a substantial share of the parking market, with more than 2,200 pieces of equipment installed for almost 200 customers in the
United States, Canada and Mexico.
Vancouver-based DataWave Systems says its CFO/Director Marc Belsky has
resigned. John Gunn, General Manager, North American Operations, has been
appointed CFO to replace Belsky. The Company also announced the appointment
of Syd Franchuk as Director of DataWave Systems. Franchuk is President of
National Money Mart Co., based in Victoria, British Columbia, the largest
provider of convenience-based retail financial services in Canada. DataWave
is a developer of prepaid and stored-value programs.