Marketing

A new electronic gift card launched by The Home Depot Inc. that lets customers upload and send video images—apparently the first such card in the market—is performing reasonably well in the early going for the huge home-improvement chain. “It’s a little bit early, but it has met expectations so far,” …

Citigroup Inc. revealed on Tuesday it will start a pilot next month for a new type of credit card that will let cardholders apply rewards they’ve earned by pressing a button on the card. The pilot for the new card, which Citi has dubbed its 2G credit card, will start …

In an apparent first in the debit card market, MasterCard Inc. has a struck a deal with Delta Air Lines Inc. to build a national network of issuers of Delta SkyMiles cobranded debit cards bearing the MasterCard logo. Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc. currently is the sole issuer of Delta debit …

With interchange and overdraft-fee revenues under withering political and regulatory attack, debit card issuers can point to one bright spot in their quest for growth—instance issuance of cards in bank and credit-union branches. Some 35% of financial institutions offered the service in 2009, up from 28% in 2008, according to …

Visa Inc. sees its new RightCliq shopping service as a means by which it can control more e-commerce transaction volume. But it might also represent a tactic by which it can add value to payments at a time when payment processing is increasingly perceived by merchants and consumers as a …

A provision in the new Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 that exempts some reloadable prepaid cards from interchange regulation could make such cards an attractive option for retailers. But merchants were heavily promoting reloadable gift cards long before the legislation appeared for another reason: to …

While social media sites are wildly popular with consumers, it turns out those same users give the sites low scores for satisfaction, ranking the category above only airlines and cable and satellite TV providers, according to a report released on Tuesday. Still, that dissatisfaction is unlikely to affect payments processors …

It’s social payments, person-to-person payments, and micropayments all in one. And it’s sweet too. That’s the essence of a new electronic-gift service dubbed “eGift Social” that payment processor First Data Corp. launched recently with ice cream purveyor Cold Stone Creamery as its first client. Cold Stone, a unit of Scottsdale, …

Online criminals are broadcasting fewer scam e-mails but are zeroing in on more individuals who have substantial assets to protect or who have access to companies' or financial institutions' money-movement capability, according to the latest report on phishing from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The report also indicates that merchants, banks, …

In its effort to become a major supplier for merchants seeking to use their iPhones from Apple Inc. as payment card-accepting terminals, VeriFone Holdings Inc. already has announced a major marketing initiative for its PAYware Mobile system that includes a software application on Apple Inc.'s iTunes App Store and a …