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In just a few years the versatile cards that replaced most bank customers' ATM cards have become so popular that they have transformed the way Americans use their money and made banks a nice chunk of cash. It pays for gas for your car, for groceries at the supermarket, even for lunch and with debit cards, banks don't impose the off-network fee when customers get the cash back.

Smart cards are conventional credit card-sized cards that are imbedded with a microchip. The microchip enables the card to store information, similar to the magnetic stripe on a credit card, or to interact with a computer network. Smart cards with programmable microchips can be used as stored-value cards. Banks and other financial institutions should embrace smart-card technology.

Financial institutions should place a high priority on check cards because such cards are profitable and make checking accounts more valuable, according to Visa USA Exec VP Michael Beindorff. He said that Visa's intent is to convince consumers to use check cards as readily as they now use checks or cash. Beindorff describes the check card business environment and details Visa's commitment to support check card use.

Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (SSTL), which offers mobile telecom services under the MTS brand, will launch a card-based payment service called MTS mPOS, which is a mobile substitute to the [...]

Byline: Victoria Finkle Boca Raton, Fla., â William Cooper, the notoriously outspoken chief executive of TCF Financial Corp., had some surprising praise this week for the much-contested Consumer Financial Protection [...]

Byline: David Heun Several major cities around the globe have been exposed to contactless-payment methods with cards or mobile phones, but Barcelona, Spain, soon may become the first city in [...]

Universities across the nation are serving as incubators for large-scale online and offline debit payment systems, and they are finding that if the option is positioned in the right way, [...]

Byline: Kate Fitzgerald Pending debit interchange rate rule changes are causing uncertainty about strategies for debit card rewards programs. The biggest question is whether banks will be able to fund [...]

Byline: Andrea McKenna Some card companies use sports sponsorships to generate loyalty, but they also are good vehicles to try out new products, according to an analyst. 'The coolest thing [...]

A French payments exec said JPMorgan Chase & Co. would be justified in telling clients it's safer to make debit card purchases with a signature than using a PIN. Marite [...]

Byline: Daniel Wolfe With consumers increasingly shifting spending to debit, Total System Services Inc. has developed a way to help credit issuers retain those transactions by combining both functions in [...]

Byline: Marc Hochstein In Defense of Animals, a nonprofit, is offering its donors an affinity debit card that runs on Tempo Payments Inc.'s network. Every time the cards are used [...]

Byline: Marc Hochstein Tri Tax of San Pedro, Calif., is offering a debit card for customers to receive tax refunds and paycheck deposits, which the tax-preparation franchisor called a draw [...]

Commerce Online Inc., a West Palm Beach, Fla., payment processor, has created a prepaid debit and identification card for licensed sellers of medical marijuana in California and Colorado. These sellers, [...]

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s purchase last year of Washington Mutual Inc.'s banking assets nearly helped it surpass Wells Fargo & Co. as the No. 2 debit card issuer, behind Bank [...]

A trade group representing Canadian retailers has called for Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. to charge a flat interchange fee if banks in Canada begin issuing PIN debit cards that [...]

A sustained tide of consumer anger about all types of bank fees is adding momentum to the long-running merchant campaign against interchange. Merchants have been trying for several years to [...]

Prepaid Card Holdings of Las Vegas said Tuesday that it has agreed to issue prepaid debit cards to the members of a labor union and their families. The cards will [...]

Banks could lose up to $20 billion of annual revenue if a large group of checking account holders shift their money to prepaid debit cards, a report published Wednesday said. [...]

The structural changes under way at Wall Street firms could intensify competition for the most affluent cardholders, a stronghold for American Express Co. As chargeoffs mount across the card industry, [...]

Eight months after it was introduced, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s prepaid debit card appears to be making headway with the underbanked. A study released Monday found that one in five consumers [...]

MasterCard Inc. said Monday that Harvard University Employees Credit Union has become the first credit union to issue contactless debit cards. The credit union issues its debit cards on MasterCard's [...]

For several years Tempo Payments Inc. had a virtual lock on the business concept of linking debit cards to the automated clearing house network, but the challenge of finding retailers [...]

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2007 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD Alaska Airlines said it is introducing technology that gives customers the option to use credit and debit cards instead of cash for on board [...]

Global Pay Solutions Inc. of San Diego said Friday that it has agreed to provide payroll cards to as many as 70,000 municipal workers throughout the 31 provinces of the [...]

Bankers are concerned, but also intrigued, by the notion of a debit card that uses the automated clearing house network to link to customers' accounts at any financial company. Some [...]

Bank of Montreal said Thursday that it was adding debit cards to its Air Miles loyalty program and boosting the rewards for customers who buy additional products and services from [...]

Executives at Security National Bankin Sioux City, Iowa, say they believe they have found a way to minimize the bank's exposure to debit card fraud: lower transaction limits. More and [...]

Bank of America Corp.'s recent pricing agreement with MasterCard Inc. for debit cards that the retail banking giant does not issue could be an effort to remind Visa U.S.A. Inc. [...]

MasterCard Inc. has published the debit interchange fees that will take in effect in Europe when the 'single European payment area' goes live. The Purchase, N.Y., credit card company's European [...]

Visa U.S.A. Inc. has a deal with Safeway Inc.'s Blackhawk Marketing Services Inc. that will let it begin its widely anticipated foray this month into the reloadable debit card market. [...]

When Bank of America Corp. introduced a debit card that rounds up the transaction amount to the nearest dollar and deposits the difference into customers' savings accounts, the Charlotte company [...]

Commonwealth Bank and Trust Co. of Louisville is using instant payment card-issuing systems from Dynamic Card Solutions of Englewood, Calif. Dynamic announced Monday that the Commonwealth Bancshares Inc. unit is [...]

MasterCard Inc. is offering a debit card rewards program that deposits rebates in Upromise Inc. college savings accounts. The Purchase, N.Y., company announced the program last week. Three banking companies [...]

Two small southwestern banks plan to begin issuing Discover signature debit cards within the next two months. Central National Bank and Trust Co. in Enid, Okla., plans to begin issuing [...]