All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
US issuers reassess hybrid products
The new, post-Durbin, regulatory landscape has issuers in the United States rethinking product design, and reconsidering hybrid card offerings New credit card products may help issuers retain customers, but in the new interchange environment, debit cards have to remain a part of the product set. Caps on the fees that issuers generate from debit card purchases took effect in October, reducing revenue for large banks by as much as $6.6 billion annually, according to a report from Javelin Strategy and Research
Profile: iZettle
Sweden is the worlds most successful country in implementing new technologies and using them for economic and social growth
MasterCard boosts Utiba’s Converging Payments
MasterCard has put its weight behind the Singaporean mobile payments company Utiba to roll out a converging payments strategy. This strategy aims to bring “banking services to the underbanked segments of the world”, said Utiba’s Co-CEO Richard Matotek. “Partnering with MasterCard is a first step in launching Utiba’s Converging Payments strategy, which calls for the intersection of mobile wallets with traditional card based payments.” He said.
Visa goes into Kenya for P2P m-remittances
Visa is going to launch an open-to-all networks cross-border mobile money transfers platform in Kenya later this year.
Movida: New m-payment platform in India
Monitise and Visa’s joint venture in India Movida expects to roll out a new mobile payments platform this year. Movida sealed a deal with India’s second largest bank HDFC which initially enables a selected number of its customers to make basic payments with their mobile phones
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Get industry leading news, data and analysis delivered to your inbox
Going with the flow – mobile based corporate payment platforms
Cash management is a major growth area clients are demanding more efficient, yet flexible, systems that make the most of broadband and mobile networks for better visibility over their working capital. The cash management markets worldwide provide a rich breeding ground for banks and vendors to grow their business solutions
M-payments war: PayPal responds to Visa’s criticism
Personal financial information is in the PayPal digital cloud safer than in your pocket and cant be lost or stolen from your wallet, your card or on your phone claims PayPal’s director of global communications Anuj Nayar Nayar’s comments were published in an email to the Wall Street Journal and came in response to criticism expressed by Visa’s executive Jim McCarthy about the security of PayPal offline strategy McCarthy said at a Goldman Sachs event in San Francisco a week ago that PayPals new digital wallet was not secure, claiming that it allows anyone to look over the shoppers shoulder and obtain the payment details
Top ATM solution providers compete for major contract in Ethiopia
A few weeks ago, two BPC executives told EPI that Ethiopia was one of the top three African countries the industry should certainly keep an eye on When the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) announced on 9 February it is ready to invest $5.8m in the expansion of its ATM network, the worlds top ATM suppliers geared up for the banks attention.
Google restores wallet service
Google has restored its wallet service on 14 February, after battling criticism for being unsafe. Osama Bedier, vice President, Google Wallet and Payments, wrote on the companys blogging site:We restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards to the Wallet. In addition, we issued a fix that prevents an existing prepaid card from being re-provisioned to another user. While were not aware of any abuse of prepaid cards or the Wallet PIN resulting from these recent reports, we took this step as a precaution to ensure the security of our Wallet customers. If you are unable to access your previous prepaid card balance for any reason, please contact our toll-free support for assistance.His response followed on from an earlier post in which he defended the Google Wallet service, after a senior engineer at a security firm developed an app that was able to crack the four-digit PIN of the wallet.
Korean credit card charge rates under revision
Koreas National Assembly has unveiled plans to revise the Credit Finance Business Act, which directly affects the credit cards sector. Assemblys National Policy Committee passed a bill that empowers the Financial Services Commission to set credit card commission rates. The proposed regulation is subject to the approval of the Assemblys plenary session. With this initiative, the Korean parliament faces the opposition of the government, the credit card industry and the FSC itself. Making the government to set the commission rates goes against market principles, chief of FSC Kim Seok-Dong told the Korea Herald this week. The Credit Finance Association, the trade body of the credit cards industry, based its opposition on the grounds that the proposed regulation is unconstitutional.