American Express reported fourth-quarter consolidated total revenues net of interest expense rose to $9.1 billion from $8.5 billion a year ago, up 7% (9% when adjusted for foreign currency translations). The revenue increase primarily reflected the previously reported gain of $719 million ($453 million after-tax) on the sale of the company’s investment in Concur Technologies. The increase also reflected a rise in cardholder spending and higher net interest income.
Univision MasterCard Prepaid Card to make major updates via a new multiyear deal with FIS. The card is a reloadable prepaid card that was developed from its inception with Hispanic consumer insights.
Virgin America announced it will partner with Alliance Data Retail Services, which manages more than 120 private label and co-brand credit programs and is an Alliance Data Systems Corporation business, to launch a new Virgin America Visa Signature® Credit Card and a first-ever Virgin America Premium Visa Signature® Card. Both co-brand cards offer Virgin America guests and Elevate® frequent flyer program members a host of perks to make their travel experience more convenient, flexible and rewarding. Under terms of the multiyear agreement, Alliance Data will partner with Virgin America to provide a full suite of credit and marketing services for the Virgin America Visa Signature Card and will leverage its full suite of acquisition tools along with its marketing and analytics expertise to drive cardholder spend and further support one-to-one customer engagement.
FIS announced that Texas-based Industry Bancshares, Inc. signed a multiyear agreement to replace its four-year-old banking system with its core banking platform to deliver faster customer service as well as advanced online and mobile banking capabilities. The bank is also deploying FIS item processing and other complementary services. Converting onto the FIS core platform allows Industry Bancshares to deliver direct benefits to its customers by providing real-time access to customer accounts across all bank channels including mobile, online banking and bill pay, EFT networks and the traditional branches across its five banks.
Latisys, a leading national provider of outsourced IT solutions — from colocation to cloud — announced an IT infrastructure services agreement with TrustCommerce, a provider of secure payment and risk management solutions. TrustCommerce provides services to some of the largest HealthCare Providers, Insurance Companies, State Transportation Agencies, Municipalities, and Fortune 100 companies. Offering a wide…
American Express will make it easy for its Cardmembers and all fans in Orlando for NBA All-Star 2012 to get closer to the action of one of the most sought-after events in sports. From live viewing parties for fans to special foursquare offers on NBA merchandise and access to private events with former NBA players and NBA legends for Cardmembers, American Express will connect with its Cardmembers, merchant partners and all NBA fans to create unforgettable moments during NBA All-Star. American Express will host NBA fans at Universal Orlando CityWalk for the American Express NBA All-Star Viewing Parties.
The NBA and American Express have partnered to forge a multiyear marketing partnership covering the NBA, USA Basketball, the Womenâs National Basketball Association (WNBA), and the NBA Development League (NBA D-League). This revisits their partnership initially agreed on between NBA and American Express from 1995 to 2005 to provide Cardmembers exclusive experiences and access to regular-season and playoff games, and premier NBA events such as NBA All-Star, the NBA Draft, and NBA Games â London 2011, the leagueâs first-ever regular-season games in Europe. As an Official Partner of USA Basketball, American Express will also provide packages to USA Basketball games and events staged in the U.S. and internationally.
American Benefit Plan Administrators (ABPA) has entered into a multiyear agreement to convert its claims payment operations to FIS’ healthcare claims payment and remittance management system, “Claim Pay/Claim Remit.” ABPA completed implementation of the first phase of the conversion on July 1, 2010 and intends to complete the next phase by early 2011. FIS’ “Claim Pay/Claim Remit” system provides the process, security and technology to help clients such as ABPA efficiently and cost-effectively coordinate both paper and electronic payment and remittance distribution through a single processing and reporting interface.
Diebold Incorporated announced its multiyear ATM outsourcing and deployment agreement with ZAO Citibank, under which Diebold will provide ATM outsourcing services for a portion of Citibank Russia’s ATM network. These services include 24×7 monitoring, help desk, cash forecasting, counting and transport, software distribution and field maintenance services. Citibank’s ATM network in Russia will be expanded with the Diebold “Opteva 522” and full-function Opteva 328 models. All ATMs will be connected to a single monitoring center that controls the network’s operations and will monitor each device in real-time. Repair and modernization, software updates, and replenishment of ATMs with disposable materials and cash will be fulfilled by Diebold’s technical support divisions in Russia.
AR-based interactive marketer Acxiom has signed a multi-year renewal with Chase Card Services, the credit card division of
JPMorgan Chase & Co., to provide customer marketing solutions. Acxiom has 40 years of experience and a proven methodology in database
marketing and consumer-centric strategies. The company provides services
for most of the largest U.S. credit card issuers and retail banks.
JPMorgan Chase is a global financial services
firm with assets of $2.1 trillion and operations in more than 60
countries, and the company has issued about 159 million credit cards in
the United States and Canada.
American Express has introduced new features to its “Delta SkyMiles Credit Cards” and is set to launch a new marketing campaign for former Northwest hubs. The cards enable cardholders to earn and redeem
miles in more ways and places, including the ability to earn Double Miles on all Delta-and Northwest-operated flights: “Gold” and “Platinum” Delta “SkyMiles” credit cardholders and Delta “Reserve” cardholders, who currently enjoy double miles on virtually every dollar of spend with Delta, can also earn double miles on all purchases made with Deltaâs wholly-owned subsidiary, Northwest. Cardholders earn one mile for every eligible dollar of spending everywhere else; redeem for any seat anytime on all Delta-and Northwest-operated flights and redeem for award tickets with no redemption fees: American Express is waiving fees associated with award ticket redemptions on all Delta-and Northwest-operated flight and is launching a “Switch to the Official Card of the Worldâs Largest Airline” advertising campaign to reinforce the fact that the “Delta SkyMiles Card” is the official, exclusive card of Deltaâs “SkyMiles” program within the U.S. and that “WorldPerks” members who wish to continue to combine miles earned from flying with miles earned on co-branded card purchases will need to take action and switch to a “Delta SkyMiles Credit Card”.
American Express reported that its International Card Services unit produced fourth-quarter net income of $36 million, compared to a net loss of $68 million a year ago. While cardholder spending decreased 14% and charge-offs topped 3.0%, expenses for marketing, promotion, rewards and cardholder services decreased 53% from year-ago levels. Total outstandings for international cards dropped to $9.4 billion, from $12.5 billion in the prior quarter, and $11.4 billion one-year ago. Volume declined from $28.2 billion for 4Q/07 to $24.2 billion for 4Q/08. Total number of international cards was 16.3 million at the end of the quarter. Global Commercial Services reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $18 million compared to net income of $110 million a year ago, due largely to the acquisition of a commercial card and corporate purchasing unit in March 2008. Global Network & Merchant Services reported fourth-quarter net income of $215 million, down 15% from a year ago, reflecting lower merchant-related revenues from the decrease in global card billed business, offset in part by higher revenues from GNS’ bank partners. For complete details on American Express’ U.S. and international cards businesses visit CardData (www.carddata.com).