NEWS

Report studies fringe banking

In a new report, "Kiosks in Financial Services: Targeting Fringe Banking Users," Aite Group reviewed the prospects of transactional financial services kiosks in the United States. The report revealed that several business and technology factors are joining forces to create new opportunities for kiosk deployers to deliver services to both unbanked and underbanked consumers, as well as banked consumers who may use alternative financial services providers for convenience.

Gift card market grows to $35 billion

In a new report, "The U.S. Prepaid and Gift Card Market," Packaged Facts assessed the growth and diversification of the consumer gift card market, which the report estimated at $35.3 billion in 2005. Approximately two thirds of consumers bought gift cards in 2004, and they comprised consumers' top holiday purchases.

Wal-Mart bank hearings scheduled

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. scheduled two public hearings on Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s bid to open an industrial bank, setting the stage for the agency's first-ever formal public hearings on a bank application. The hearings are set for April 10 - 11 in Washington, D.C., and April 25 - 26 in Kansas City, Mo.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

American Bancard purchases new facility

American Bancard LLC purchased a 77,100 square-foot facility in Boca Raton, Fla. (formerly occupied by IBM) to house its corporate headquarters and affiliate companies. The company is renovating the facility to accommodate over 150 employees for corporate sales, finance and accounting, underwriting and operations support services.

USA ePay certifies ExaDigm terminal

ExaDigm Inc.'s XD2000 POS terminal received certification from USA ePay. As a retail certified gateway, USA ePay will enable merchants using the terminal to process Internet-protocol transactions through the First Data Nashville, Paymentech and Vital platforms.

FastLane offers card-issuing revenue

Payment network FastLane is now offering merchants and ISOs revenue from card issuing. Merchants and ISOs will receive shared fee income generated when a consumer enrolled by a merchant location shops at other FastLane locations.

Former First Data executive creates new company

Thomas Epstein, former Vice President of National Sales with First Data Corp., recently formed Franchise Payments Network (FPN). The new company combines client buying power to achieve a more cost-effective solution for franchise systems. FPN has already partnered with three of the nation's top five credit card processors.

Garcia named best CEO

Institutional Investor magazine named Global Payments Inc. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul R. Garcia, one of "The Best CEOs in America." Garcia was ranked the number one CEO for "Technology: Computer Services and IT Consulting" firms. This is the second consecutive year that Garcia was named to the list.

Hypercom sells terminals in Kazakhstan

Kazkommertsbank, the largest private bank in Kazakhstan, purchased 2,000 Hypercom Corp. card payment terminals and network devices. The purchase is part of a program to help the country's merchants implement customer loyalty programs.

Lipman achieves Vital approval

Lipman Engineering Ltd.'s Retail Restaurant Application with Vital Gift Card Supplement achieved Vital Processing Services Class A approval. The application was approved for the Lipman NURIT 8000 Secure, 8100 and 8320 terminals.

Pay By Touch honored

Pay By Touch received the INNY Award from The Tech Museum of Innovation (The Tech) in San Jose, Calif. INNY Awards are presented to innovations that are likely to contribute significantly to society. In conjunction with the award, The Tech will feature Pay By Touch's consumer biometric authentication technology in an exhibit.

VeriFone products certified for China standard

VeriFone's Vx Solutions payment products have been certified to meet the People's Bank of China's standard for chip card payment acceptance.

PARTNERSHIPS

Standard Chartered launches AmEx card

Standard Chartered recently launched its first credit card that can be accepted on the worldwide American Express Co. (AmEx) network. The new Standard Chartered American Express Card is the result of a strategic alliance between Standard Chartered and AmEx.

Credit Union 24 signs with Fifth Third

Credit Union 24 entered into a long-term contract for switch-processing services with Fifth Third Processing Solutions. The agreement signals the beginning of the network's conversion process from former processor Fiserv EFT. First Data to Provide

Global Merchant Solutions to HSBC

First Data signed a three-year global merchant processing agreement between its affiliate OmniPay and HSBC. OmniPay will enable HSBC to acquire merchants with a global presence on a single processing platform, consolidating all treasury, reporting and support requirements.

First National offers Bill Me Later

First National Merchant Solutions announced the addition of Bill Me Later and the Bill Me Later Preferred Account to its portfolio of merchant processing solutions. The addition gives First National customers new payment options designed for the unique needs of online, telephone and in-store shoppers.

Certegy and Wal-Mart renew agreement

Certegy Check Services and Wal-Mart have renewed a multi-year agreement to provide government and payroll check cashing in addition to tax refund checks, rewards checks and other business-related checks in over 3,000 Wal-Mart stores and supercenters nationwide.

Cineplex offers MasterCard Paypass

Canada's largest motion picture company, Cineplex Entertainment, and MasterCard Canada have teamed up to offer moviegoers contactless payment. PayPass-enabled MasterCard cards can be used to pay for tickets and concession items.

Hypercom and Communications Intelligence team

Hypercom and Communications Intelligence Corp. (CIC) are teaming up to help combat fraud and identity theft by authenticating customer signatures at the POS. CIC will license its SignatureOne biometric and electronic signature products to Hypercom, initially for incorporation into Hypercom's 32-bit Optimum L4100 and L4250 signature capture card payment devices.

ConnectYourCare and SHPS select First Data

ConnectYourCare LLC completed integration with First Data Healthcare Services as its exclusive provider of single-source processing services for its health care accounts. Health care spending account provider SHPS also signed an agreement with First Data. The agreement delivers a multi-purse debit card and related transaction processing services for SHPS' client spending account programs.

Valutec partners with CreditCard Transactions

CreditCard Transactions Inc. (CCT) has partnered with Valutec to offer turnkey gift and loyalty card products to merchants across the country. The partnership means greater access to Valutec's products for CCT's existing merchant account clients as well as greater revenue opportunities for customers seeking a merchant account provider.

Discover partners with Credomatic

Discover Financial Services LLC and Credomatic International Corp. have signed an agreement that facilitates the acceptance of Discover cards at more than 65,000 merchant locations in Central America. Credomatic and its affiliates will begin targeting major merchants in tourist destinations and subsequently will extend the offer to the company's merchant portfolio throughout the region.

Elan to provide services to New Horizons

Elan Financial Services entered into an agreement with New Horizons Credit Union to provide ATM and debit processing services. New Horizons will also join Fastbank Free, the surcharge free ATM network that is merging with the MoneyPass surcharge free network.

Global Payments and Kaiser Permanente renew agreement

Global Payments renewed its agreement with Kaiser Permanente to provide authorization and settlement for credit and debit cards and online reporting capabilities. Kaiser Permanente uses a variety of Global Payments' processing solutions throughout its business segments.

Three banks join NYCE

NYCE Corp. announced Washington Trust as a new member of the NYCE Network. Washington Trust is the largest privately owned commercial bank in the Pacific Northwest. Mid-Atlantic based financial institutions Provident Bank and WSFS Bank are also new members of the NYCE Network.

PassMark partners with VASCO, MarkMonitor

PassMark Security Inc. and VASCO Data Security International have partnered to deliver software- and hardware-based authentication products for online transaction security. The agreement calls for joint sales and marketing by the two companies. PassMark has also partnered with MarkMonitor to provide financial institutions an end-to-end solution for addressing fraud.

Q Comm inks two partnerships

Q Comm International Inc. will provide its suite of prepaid products and services to Vertex Communications Inc., a provider of prepaid telephone services. Q Comm also partnered with SouthernLINC Wireless.SouthernLINC will promote Q Comm's prepaid distribution solutions to its retail network, and Q Comm will promote SouthernLINC's new prepaid wireless plan to its merchants for resale.

Bank of Hawaii renews STAR relationship

Bank of Hawaii Corp. renewed its relationship with the STAR Network for PIN-secured debit services. Bank of Hawaii is the largest independent financial institution in the state of Hawaii.

ACQUISITIONS

InComm to acquire PRE Holdings

InComm signed an agreement to acquire PRE Holdings Inc. The acquisition marks the second recent acquisition by InComm, which also announced the acquisition of KwikSystems LLC and Prepaid Enterprises LLC. The acquisition of PRE will accelerate InComm's retail presence to over 145,000 locations

Q Comm purchases POS business

Q Comm International acquired the electronic POS business from Sun Communications, a prepaid distributor. The acquisition increases Q Comm's merchant base by over 300 locations in California. Additionally, Pieter Hamman, President of Sun Communications, will join Q Comm International as Vice President of Western U.S. Sales.

Heartland Payment Systems acquires Debitek

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. acquired Debitek, a provider of prepaid and stored value solutions. Debitek's client base uses approximately 130,000 payment devices. Financial terms of the transaction, which was structured as a stock purchase, were not announced.

APPOINTMENTS

Global eTelecom appoints president

Global eTelecom Inc. (GETI) appointed Chris Brun- dage as President. Brundage will be responsible for driving GETI's growth in the payment processing industry. Brundage joined GETI as Director of Sales in 2001 and most recently served as Senior Vice President.

Courtney named to POSDATA management

POSDATA appointed Constance L. Courtney its Director of Business Development. Courtney brings more than nine years of experience in the payments industry. She will manage POSDATA's East Coast account base as well as work with payment processors and retail software developers with the integration of Ingenico, Hypercom, VeriFone and ExaDigm payment terminals into their payments solutions.

Pay By Touch hires two

Pay By Touch recently hired Drew Hyatt as Senior Vice President and Elizabeth Yata as Vice President and Group Product Manager. In his more than 15 years of experience in financial services, Hyatt held several executive-level positions, including President of HNC Software's Financial Solutions Group and Senior Vice President and Corporate Officer of Digital Insight. Yata spent nearly 10 years at Bank of America Corp., where she was Vice President and Group Product Manager for both retail and wholesale banking services. Prior to Bank of America, she spent nine years at Visa U.S.A., serving as Senior Vice President of Service Management.

BOTTOM LINES

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is expanding the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) to track merchandise in its entire supply chain: from suppliers to warehouses to Wal-Mart's distribution centers and, finally, to the stores. In 2005, the retailer had 100 suppliers and 500 stores equipped with RFID. By 2007, those numbers will increase to 600 and 1,000, respectively.
• MasterCard Advisors LLC, the global professional services organization of MasterCard International, has teamed with British news and financial information service Reuters to distribute MasterCard's SpendingPulse, a proprietary source of retail sales data. SpendingPulse will be available to Reuters' subscribers before comparable information is made available to the public.
• The International Council of Shopping Centers sponsored a conference, "2006 Gulf South Idea Exchange," in which four major retailers affirmed their commitment to the region devastated by Hurrican Katrina: Wal-Mart, Walgreen Co., JCPenney Co. Inc., and Dillard's Inc.