debit card

A global payments provider Elavon, wholly owned by US Bancorp, has partnered with China UnionPay to enable merchants of Elavon accept UnionPay’s debit and credit card payments in Canada with the plans to further expand into Latin America.

The partnership bases Elavon’s secure, world class international processing platform to provide merchants with the benefit of a single point of service for processing, funding, settlement and reporting for all Visa®, MasterCard®, American Express®, Discover® Network and UnionPay transactions.

Visa Inc announced its plans to introduce new fee scheme for US merchants. In a conference call with analysts Visa Chief Executive Joseph Saunders said the company would introduce a network participation fee in the United States for all of its debit, credit and prepaid card services.

Among other things in the new policy Visa will lower the variable rate charged for transactions.

The move comes in the wake of new fee structure that will take effect later this year under 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Fiserv Inc, a global provider of financial services technology solutions, has partnered with Cardlytics, a provider of transaction marketing, to provide its merchants with merchant-funded rewards through Corillian Online, an integrated banking, payment and personal financial management solution used by millions of consumers nationwide.

American Express has launched Serve, a new digital payment and commerce platform to provide consumers with more ways to spend, send and receive money with services that go beyond the existing global payment networks.

Using Serve consumers can purchase or make person-to-person (P2P) payments online, via mobile phones, and at millions of merchants who accept American Express cards. Serve combines different payment options under a single account that is funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card, or by receiving money from another Serve account.

MasterCard Worldwide has announced appointment of Maripi S. Jalandoni as a new Group Head of Marketing for its Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) region. According to the company’s policy Jalandoni will ensure that the company’s brand positioning is executed effectively. Living in Singapore, she will control regional management of marketing teams and develop new strategies to accommodate local market opportunities. 

Visa Inc posted its year results for Latin America and Caribbean businesses. During the year ended December 31, 2010 the company achieved regional payments volume growth of 23.2% with Brazil recording 24.6%, Mexico 16.8%, and the rest of Latin America and Caribbean as a group reporting a 22.8% yearly growth.

Visa is implementing a new money transfer service to allow customers send funds in real-time to other cards using the VisaNet network. For the first time the service was activated by Russia's largest payment kiosk operator, 1st Processing Bank (QIWI Group), and Ukraine's largest bank, PrivatBank earlier this week. Now Visa plans international roll-out.

Using the service customers just specify their Visa card number to initiate the payment. It eliminates any need to fill out different forms and give away routing information such as bank codes and branch addresses.

VeriFone Systems Inc has teamed up with LifeNexus Inc for iChip acceptance software on VeriFone payment acceptance solutions. LifeNexus is making the Personal Health Card which is the first multi-purpose electronic health card utilizing the embedded iChip for securely maintaining an individual’s health record and incorporates a payment card option.

Direct Debit Limited has partnered with WorldPay to provide a single comprehensive payment platform to their customers.

Through this partnership clients of both companies will be able to collect numerous payment types, including credit and debit card, Direct Debit, SEPA and Faster Payments, through one system.

Visa has introduced a new service for consumers to help them better monitor their spending.

Powered by Visa’s global network VisaNet the service that offers accountholders a mobile SMS text, email, and online spend management tool that allows them to set a “purchase threshold” for various accounts, monitor their spending in certain categories, and alerts them when their aggregate spending exceeds pre-set levels.

MoneyGram International has partnered with Visa to launch MoneyGram's first cash-to-Visa account program for remittances from the United States to Mexico.

Under the program consumers will be able to use any of the 35,000 MoneyGram locations in the U.S. to quickly and reliably send funds directly to eligible Visa accounts in Mexico. Recipients in Mexico receive the funds directly to their Visa credit, debit, or prepaid accounts. Then they can withdraw the cash from Visa's global network of millions of merchant acceptance locations and ATMs.

A new research was released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and First Data that studied data security and fraud prevention strategies practiced at small to mid-sized retailers. A total of 651 small and mid-sized merchants completed the survey.

Online financial services company PerkStreet Financial has entered into a strategic partnership with MasterCard Worldwide to offer innovative financial products to MasterCard cardholders as part of PerkStreet’s checking account rewards program. Under the agreement PerkStreet will convert its debit card program to MasterCard early next year.

PaymentVision and PayNearMe have partnered for remote transactions with cash payments which is as convenient as going to a local 7-Eleven store. Consumers who pay for goods and services like their utilities, loans, or groceries with cash have a new option to go online and pay offline, locally. The new solution is cheaper than pre-paid debit cards, walk-up bill pay or money orders sent by mail.

 American Express and American Airlines have announced the launch of the American Express® / Business ExtrAA® Corporate Platinum Card. The new product is designed for mid-sized companies seeking to balance comfort, ease and productivity for their executive business travelers while simultaneously reducing corporate expenses.