Debit Cards

U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) planned this week to introduce bills that would bar tech firms from developing their own cryptocurrencies and make it more difficult for non-financial firms to obtain charters for industrial-loan corporations, a form of a bank, according to Politico. Garcia’s office did not immediately respond to a request …

Now that Google Inc. is making a play for the heart of payments—the checking account—some observers see the strategy’s first fruit as likely to be a move into a massive market long controlled by banks and service providers. “It’s huge,” Krista Tedder, director of payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, …

The Federal Trade Commission has started a preliminary inquiry into whether Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., and large debit card issuers are blocking merchants from routing transactions over PIN-debit networks, the Bloomberg Law news service reported, citing anonymous sources. FTC investigators reportedly have contacted merchants and their trade groups, Bloomberg Law said. Spokespersons for …

Compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard remains an elusive goal for many merchants and other organizations that handle general-purpose payment card data. In fact, compliance fell in 2018 for the second year in a row, according to Verizon Communications Inc. Verizon’s newly released Payment Security Report says only …

With Facebook Inc.’s launch Tuesday of Facebook Pay, the social-media giant may feel somewhat assured that many of its 1.6 billion daily users will at least try the new wallet when making purchases in one of the company’s social networks. But that does not mean the rest of the payments …

Boost Payment Solutions Inc., an acquirer for commercial card transactions, said it is collaborating with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to process payments and automate delivery for Chase’s Single Use Card Accounts and other commercial cards.Cardlytics Inc., which derives marketing intelligence from purchase data, reported a 116% year-over-year increase in monthly …

A retail trade association as well as Target Corp. have endorsed the Federal Reserve’s planned FedNow real-time gross settlement service. In a letter posted last week on the official FedNow comment site, the Washington, D.C.-based Retail Industry Leaders Association said “over the past decades RILA has seen competition and innovation …

Research firm eMarketer Inc. forecasted that 2019 U.S. holiday sales will surpass $1 trillion in value for the first time. Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving, is expected to be the biggest online shopping day and could approach $10 billion in sales. With Thanksgiving falling on the last Thursday of …

Prepaid-program manager Green Dot Corp. will launch a marketing campaign with talk-show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres’s celebrity will be used to promote Green Dot Bank, Steve Streit, Green Dot founder and chief executive, said during a conference call with analysts Thursday. DeGeneres is host of the popular TV …

Finance departments contain many functions that don’t always work together as well as they should. That’s especially true of Accounts Payable and Treasury. You’d think they’d work more effectively together as teams that both control the flow of funds for an organization, but in my experience, that’s rare. That lack …