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Mar 23th, 2012
Edition #296
New to NewsFilter? Click here to subscribe. In this Issue In Other News This Day in History 1913 Tornadoes Devastate Nebraska A horrible month for weather-related disasters in the United States culminates with a devastating tornado ripping through Nebraska, near Omaha, on this day in 1913. It was the worst of five twisters that struck that day in Nebraska and Iowa, killing 115 people in total. The week prior to this disaster saw all types of calamitous weather strike throughout the country. Blizzards hit the Northeast while hurricane-strength winds were battering Alabama and Georgia. In Florida, a late freeze devastated much of the citrus crop. But the worst weather came in Nebraska on the afternoon of March 23. Rain began falling at 5 p.m., southwest of Omaha. Twenty minutes later, the first tornado touched down in Craig, Nebraska. At 5:30, another twister hit the town of Ithaca and began a 70-mile run through the countryside. In Yutan, a woman was reported to have been carried a full quarter-mile in her home before coming down unharmed. Click here to read more.
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Vantiv Stock Climbs in Debut on NYSE 
3/22/12 Bloomberg Shares of Vantiv Inc. are rising in their first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The third-party payment processor's stock gained $2.20, or 12.9 percent, to $19.20 in morning trading Thursday after trading as high as $19.53 earlier in the session. Vantiv priced the approximately 29.4 million shares in its initial public offering at $17 apiece. That was the midpoint of its predicted price range of $16 to $18 per share. Its stock trades under the ticker symbol "VNTV." See Vantiv's investor relations page.
3/22/12 The Chronicle Herald Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it’s come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them. "I can’t see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970s pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash. The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money. Amex Building a Culture Around Data, Not Payments
3/22/12 BTN In August, the New York credit card network opened a new Manhattan office to nurture its digital wallet, Serve — and to remove the 200 employees devoted to that project from the culture and tradition of its main office. We are beginning to realize that data is actually more valuable than the payment transaction itself," says Dan Schulman, Amex's group president of enterprise growth. "The reason that Google wants to move in with Google Wallet is not because they want to move into payments ... What they really want is the data from that transaction." Google Said to Rethink Wallet Strategy Amid Slow Adoption
3/21/12 Businessweek Google Inc. is weighing changes aimed at improving its Google Wallet mobile-payment system following slow adoption and the departure of two key managers, according to people with knowledge of the project. The company is considering sharing revenue with carriers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. (T) to get them to embrace the technology, which lets users pay for items at checkout by tapping phones on a reader device, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. Square Poaches from PayPal as it Bids for International Expansion
3/21/12 Finextra The move can be seen as a direct riposte to Paypal, which last week unveiled PayPal Here, a a free app and fully encrypted triangle-shaped thumb-sized card reader, which turns any iPhone, and soon Android handset, into a mobile payment system that customers can swipe their cards through to carry out transactions. PayPal claims the company signed up more than 1000 businesses per hour in the first 24-hours after the launch of Here. Direct Air's Collapse Hits Credit Card Processor; Refunds in the Millions
3/22/12 Telegram.com Direct Air passengers who paid for flights that have been canceled through at least mid-May aren't the only ones taking a financial hit from the Myrtle Beach, S.C.-based charter air service's stunning collapse. Lawyers for JetPay Merchant Services LLC of Carrollton, Texas, filed an emergency motion in the Worcester court this morning asking Judge Melvin S. Hoffman to instruct a New Jersey bank holding Direct Air's escrow account to reimburse JetPay for the millions of dollars in refunds it has had to pay out to credit card companies since last week. Analysis: U.S. Job Gains Hint at More Spending and Hiring
3/22/12 Yahoo! It's not quite Easy Street, but more money is starting to flow along Main Street. A recent acceleration in U.S. job growth could create a virtuous cycle, lining the pockets of more Americans, leading to more spending, faster growth and further hiring. The pickup isn't enough on its own to guarantee a robust recovery, but it offers hope that the brighter economic signs in recent weeks will prove lasting. On an annualized basis, the 734,000 jobs created over the past three months probably generated about $360 billion in additional income Congress Takes First Look at Mobile Payments
3/22/12 American Banker Congress took its first cautious steps into mobile payments on Thursday with a House hearing focused on security issues and prudent regulation for the rapidly-changing sphere. In many ways, the hearing before the House Financial Services subcommittee on financial institutions and consumer credit, revealed the wide gap between the industry's focus on mobile payments and Washington's relative lack of focus on the issue. "Most importantly, we must make sure these payments are safe and secure, at least as safe as using cash, checks or credit cards, and hopefully even more so." IDL Technology Announces Loyalty Anywhere Roll-Out with RKIOSKI Convenience Store Chain in Europe
3/23/12 IDL IDL Technology, the U.K.-based loyalty provider, announces the roll-out of its Loyalty Anywhere solution with the TCC Group, owners of over 200 RKIOSKI convenience stores in Estonia. RKIOSKI is the market leading convenience store chain throughout Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania and includes a network of over 1,500 corporate owned and franchised stores. RKIOSKI’s legacy paper-based stamp collector loyalty program has been replaced with a state-of-the-art electronic system utilizing IDL Technology’s real-time Loyalty Anywhere solution, which is fully integrated with the POS system.
3/21/12 GreenSheet A week after the launch of PayPal Here, PayPal Inc.'s new mobile card reader solution, Anuj Nayar, the company's. Director of Communications, reported that the company signed up PayPal Here customers at the rate of 1,000 per hour on the first day of the PayPal Here release. "To say there's been some interest in our new offering would be an understatement," Nayar said. "Clearly there's a need for a secure, global solution that provides small businesses the flexibility to get paid anytime, anywhere, any way." Reps Advised To Drive Hard Bargain With ISOs
3/21/12 ISO & Aent Agents should use their negotiation skills to angle for the best possible deals from ISOs on splits, commissions, fees, expenses and benefits, observers say. Some ISOs lure agents with promises of 80%, 90% or even 100% of the profits, but companies offer those splits to attract salespeople who can generate their own leads so they don’t have to devote time and effort to providing referrals. Dwolla Readies Pilot for Near-Instant Funds Movement with 16 Financial Institutions
3/21/12 Digital Transactions Dwolla Corp. is preparing to begin testing with some 16 financial institutions the first stage of what it calls a “disruptive” system aimed at dramatically speeding up funds transfers on the automated clearing house network. When fully integrated, Dwolla says the system will permit virtually real-time movement of money for its online and mobile payments platform.The private beta, as Dwolla dubs its test, will open up to consumers within “ a couple of months.” The Apple iWallet: Why The iPhone 5 Killer Feature is Mobile Payments
3/20/1 IB Times Apple breaks down the iWallet like this: Credit card transactions happen all the time, whether or not the cardholder is present. There's a lesser chance of fraud when the cardholder is present, but unfortunately, the cardholder can't be present all the time. Apple's solution, the iWallet, aims to provide real-time authorization for transactions where the cardholder is not present, or remote. However, unlike transactions over the Internet, Apple promises its service to be highly secure and reliable.
3/20/12 Heartland Payment Systems Heartland Payment Systems, one of the nation's largest payments processors, earned three Stevie Awards in the sixth annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service(SM) competition. The company won a Silver Stevie Award in the Sales Department of the Year category, and Bronze Stevie Awards in the Frontline Customer Service Team category and the Customer Service Training Team category. TSYS Introduces “People-Centered Payments”
3/19/12 TSYS TSYS announced today the launch of its new brand initiative which highlights the company’s corporate purpose, called “People-Centered PaymentsSM.” Developed after in-depth research and study, this purpose driven brand reflects TSYS’ “higher calling” as a company to improve the lives and businesses of people around the world through payments. The company believes this unique focus on people and placing the needs of clients and their customers, is a differentiator and provides a distinct advantage.
3/21/12 BusinessWire American Express announced today that the American Express Prepaid Card, a prepaid reloadable Card with no monthly or maintenance fees, will soon be available in retail at select Office Depot stores. The Card will roll out in more than 1,100 stores across the United States in the coming weeks1 and provide Office Depot customers with a smarter spending and budgeting tool that can be used anywhere that American Express® Cards are accepted.
3/21/12 Seeking Alpha Discover reported net income of $631 million for the first quarter of 2012, as compared to $465 million for the first quarter of 2011. "Our results this quarter represent record first quarter earnings for Discover and are a great start for 2012," said David Nelms, chairman and chief executive officer of Discover. "Continued improvements in credit performance, solid organic growth in each of our lending products and strong volume growth across our networks were key drivers of this quarter's earnings. VeriFone U.S. Payment Gateway Volume Hits $10 Billion
3/19/12 VeriFone VeriFone Systems, Inc., today announced that U.S. transaction volume through its PAYware Connect gateway has achieved an annual rate exceeding $10 billion, a first for the mobile payments industry. Growth in mobile payments and increasing retailer demand for cloud-based payment services is spurring increased opportunities for VeriFone's hosted payment solution, which minimize the complexities of payment acceptance and reduces the scope of PCI compliance. After 2 Years of Testing, Venmo Opens Payment Service to Public
Bits 3/20/12 Bits After more than two years in beta testing, Venmo, a mobile payments service that lets people send money to their friends, is opening its doors to the public on Tuesday. It is rare for a start-up company working in a highly competitive and crowded market like mobile payments to stay in test mode for so long, at the risk of having rivals overtake it. But the team behind Venmo didn'tt think the service was ready for use until now. Deutsche Ditches Dodd-Frank, Changes Legal Status of U.S. Unit
3/21/12 Reuters Effective Feb. 1, Deutsche Bank gave up bank holding company status for Taunus Corp and made Deutsche Bank Trust Co the main U.S. holding company, the lender's annual report showed. This legal simplification helps Deutsche Bank conform with the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. "We have always had and will continue to have appropriate capital levels in all of our U.S.-regulated entities. This action, allows us to streamline our organisational structure, strengthening an already strong institution." |
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