All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
Nominate now for 2010 Awards
Nominations are now welcome from Cards International readers who wish to highlight the outstanding product launches and innovations from the past year, with the winners to be announced at our prestigious Gala Awards Dinner. This years Cards & Payments Europe Event and Awards will be heading to Madrid in Spain on 18-19 May, where the worlds leading cards and payment players will gather to share their market-leading business insights and best practices, and discuss how they have reshaped their business models to adapt to this new era.
Debt levels cause alarm bells to ring
Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes and nowhere is this more relevant than in the credit card industry, where eye-watering levels of bad debts and record losses on credit card portfolios have forced issuers to overhaul their risk management and lending activities.
Turkey leads innovation in the East
Turkeys payment card market stands out as one of the most dynamic and forward-thinking in Europe, thanks to its unique issuing and acquiring structure Mehmet Sezgin, CEO of Garanti Payment Systems, looks at some of the most recent payment trends in the country.
Citi provides a major boost for e-government in California
Paying taxes and bills to Californian state departments has become a whole lot easier following implementation of an electronic funds transfer solution for the state by US banking group Citis Global Transaction Services (GTS) unit GTS was awarded a multi-year contract by the California State Treasurers Office to operate what constitutes the largest electronic state tax collection platform in the US. To address what Citi described as the diverse and complex needs of state agencies participating in the initiative, Citi partnered with US payments processing systems vendor Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) to develop a customised end-to-end payments solution.
News Digest
MoneyGram Internationals reach in Chinas remittance market is set to increase more than threefold, thanks to an agreement reached with Bank of China (BoC), one of the countrys big-four commercial banks The agreement follows completion of a six-month pilot involving 240 BoC branches in Beijing and by the end of 2011 will see MoneyGrams service extended to BoCs 10,000 branches throughout China.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Get industry leading news, data and analysis delivered to your inbox
Region round-up 10.02.10
Chinas central bank, the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), is to issue a series of supervisory regulations this year to oversee prepaid cards. The government is looking at ways to protect consumer rights and develop common standards in the burgeoning prepaid card industry.
Europe on track for EMV deadline
Data from the European Commission and the European Payments Council show most European card markets are on track to complete full EMV migration by the end of 2010 Good progress is being made in the realisation of a Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) for cards, according to new data from the EuropeanCommission and the European Payments Council.
Mixed results for US issuers
The credit crunch is clearly being felt among US issuers, as a glance at fourth-quarter earnings shows that even as loan losses declined from the previous quarter or stabilised at the top five issuers, issuers hesitance to spend or borrow hampered the companies revenues as credit quality remains a volatile question mark hanging over the industry.
Hong Kong and China plan cross-border e-money scheme
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is planning a cross-border e-money scheme with China, which will encompass an electronic funds transfer at the point of sale framework for transit and small value payments. At the core of the project is the creation of a multifunction prepaid card that would incorporate Hong Kongs massively successful Octopus transit application and the Shenzhen Tong transport card.
RegaloCard aims for remittance market
A new player in the market, RegaloCard, is aiming to capitalise on this demand by using prepaid gift cards as a remittance tool, as Charles Davis reports. The one-upmanship in the international remittance market continues unabated, with the newest player delivering quite a shot across the bow: free text message-based, retailer-specific funds transfers to Central America