All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
Mint secures $3m investment, targets Middle East prepaid payroll market
Kuwait-based investment company Noor Telecom has signed an investment deal worth $3m with prepaid credit card provider Mint Middle East. Canada-based Mint will use the investment to finance expansion of its prepaid corporate payroll business in the region The Middle Eastern prepaid market is seen as ripe for growth because of government efforts to replace cash usage with corporate prepaid payroll cards.
More outages as CBA, ANZ hit
Australian banks Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and ANZ both suffered systems glitches in recent weeks leaving customers unable to access funds ANZ customers were hit on Tuesday 24th August leaving retailers unable to process EFTPOS and credit card transactions between 11am and 2pm CBA customers faced difficulty on Monday 30th of August, unable to withdraw cash from their banks ATMs or use EFTPOS at retailers
US personal finances getting worse
Discover Financial Services US Spending Monitor, a monthly spending index, 24 percent of consumers describing their finances as poor, a 3 percentage point increase
Chavez launches state debit card
The card, called Cedula del Buen Vivir (Certificate of Good Living), is to be issued by state-controlled Banco de Venezuela, Banco del Tesoro and Banco Bicentario, and will be linked to a savings account.
BancorpSouth targets students with card
The products will be launched for students at Mississippi State University and The University of Southern Mississippi during the fourth quarter of this year
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Heartland agrees to $5m Discovery settlement
US processor Heartland Payment Systems will pay $5m to Discovery Financial Services in its final settlement on a 2008 data breach. The agreement follows a $41.4m payout to MasterCard, a $60 million agreement with Visa and a $3.6m bill from American Express as a result of the security lapse.
UK card write-offs to dip early 2011
Write-offs on credit card portfolios in the UK hit their highest level since records began, at £2.1bn ($3.2bn), according to a Bank of England update. Write-offs for the three months ended July 2010, which represent loans that credit card issuers consider unlikely to be paid back, increased 163 percent from the same period last year They increased 70.5 percent on the previous quarter and were the highest since the Bank of England started publishing information on credit cardswrite-offs in1993.
Debt collection agencies hit by downturn
Consumers, businesses and banks were all affected by the recession, but the financial crisis has recently been claiming some unlikely victims: debt collection agencies. Ten percent of the agencies went out of business in 2009, with many more suffering cash-flow problems. John Hill reports.
Prepaid is no get-rich-quick – Visa head
The prepaid card industry needs to shed its get-rich-quick image and focus more on innovation and educating customers about its advantages So says Fiona Duncan, head of prepaid at Visa Europe, who shared her thoughts about the state of the industry with John Hill.
Internet helps drive MasterCard second-quarter GDV in Europe
A MasterCard decision to enable Maestro debit cards on the internet helped boost gross dollar volume by 13.7% in the second quarter of 2010.