While some big banks pull back on debit card promotion, smaller institutions are finding ways to boost usage among customers who have cards but seldom use them. And some are finding out that, perhaps because of the time of the year, charitable appeals may work better than personal rewards. Co-Op …

Retail purchases online will reach $318 billion this year, up a healthy 13% from 2011, with mobile transactions accounting for more than 6% of that volume, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. This year marks the first time mobile-originated transactions have accounted for a meaningful share …

Merchants and their various industry trade groups have spent quite a lot of time—not to mention money—on lobbying for regulations to control interchange costs. And not without success. In 2010, they got Congress to add the Durbin Amendment, which caps debit interchange for the biggest issuers, to the massive Dodd-Frank …

Jane Adler With an April deadline looming, industry observers’ doubts are growing that merchant processors will be ready to handle EMV transactions. Nothing inspires like a deadline. Just ask the merchant acquirers and processors that face a quickly approaching April deadline to be ready to process EMV or chip card …

Jim Daly The Royal Canadian Mint held a first-of-its-kind competition this year to spawn ideas for virtual cash. Could some of these ideas solve the problem of the high cost of low-value electronic payments? From Silicon Valley to India, almost the entire world is bubbling with new ideas for electronic …

Fewer than two months after a competitor announced a similar deal, wireless payments provider Apriva Inc. this week reported that it would continue offering pre-Durbin Amendment discounted acceptance pricing on Visa cards to vending-machine operators. Debit card interchange in late 2011 became a major concern for vending-machine operators and other …

Already under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for its competitive response to the Durbin Amendment debit card regulations in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act, Visa Inc. is now getting scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission about a gateway service that routes transactions to PIN-debit networks. Visa disclosed on Friday in …

To the dismay of retailers but the joy of the card networks and bank defendants, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson on Friday gave preliminary approval to the controversial settlement of credit card interchange litigation announced July 13. The National Retail Federation, the leading retail-industry trade group and an outspoken foe …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday reported brisk growth in its credit business and a stabilizing debit market while touting progress for its new digital wallet, V.me. Overall, the results released for Visa’s fourth quarter show the world’s biggest payments network is wising up about how to cope with a new, more …

Last month came word of what appears to be a potent new prepaid card offering from American Express Co. Dubbed Bluebird and offered through Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the card runs on AmEx’s new Serve transaction platform and eschews many of the pesky fees other prepaid cards levy on consumers. No …