July 27, 2010 --The Province of Ontario and the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) are quarrelling over which contactless fare system to adopt. At stake is hundreds of millions of dollars worth of provincial subsidies which the TTC has been promised by the Province. Hoping to create a single contactless ticket system that would be used across the province, Ontario has been subsidizing the development and roll out of the Presto proprietary contactless fare card system. Presto has been under development for five years with advice from Accenture. Read the article
July 27, 2010--Experts consulted by Payments Business are generally positive about a House of Commons Bill which proposes to update Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). PIPEDA, which provides a federal framework for data privacy in Canada, came into effect in 2004. Parliament is required to update the bill every five years. Read the article
July 22, 2010--Vancouver, British Columbia-based VendTek Systems is taking its e-Fresh virtual prepaid card processing platform to international markets. As well as developing and licensing e-Fresh, VendTek owns and operates the NPP (Now Prepay) processing network which connects to 15,000 POS locations in Canada and 800 locations in the U.S. Read the article
The hype surrounding mobile payments in Canada has largely dissipated, according to a conference report by Rob Burbach, senior analyst at IDC Financial Insights. His report, Mobile Payments in Canada: Is the Hype Over?, covered the June 2010 ACT Canada Cardware Conference, which focused on emerging card and payment issues for Canada.
ACT Canada is a payment industry association whose members include card issuers and acquirers, card associations (Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Interac), card technology vendors, merchants, and mobile network operators. Read the article
July 19, 2010--PayPal Canada is stepping up its efforts to attract Canadians who are ready for alternatives to cash. Currently, 4 million active Canadian PayPal users are running up C$2 billion in annual transactions. “PayPal is satisfying a move against cash by Canadian Internet users,” says Darrell MacMullin, PayPal Canada’s general manager. To prove his point, he points to a recent online survey of 1,551 adult Canadians conducted by Leger Marketing on behalf of PayPal Canada. Read the article
July 12, 2010--The Canadian Acquirers Association, representing non-bank members of the acquiring industry, is on track for an end-of-year launch, according to Adam Atlas, the driving force behind the Association. Atlas is a Montreal, Québec-based lawyer, who specializes in payment industry contracts and is licensed to practice in both New York State and Québec. His vision of a Canadian Acquirers Association is based on the thriving regional acquirers associations that operate in the U.S. Read the article
July 9, 2010--The Internet, cellphones and prepaid cards offer Canadian financial institutions opportunities to grow the use of debit cards. However, they also present financial institutions with competition from nimble newcomers, says Patricia Hewitt, director of the debit advisory service at U.S.-based consultancy Mercator Advisory Group. Read the article
July 5, 2010 --The tightening of PCI (Payments Card Industry) compliance rules for call centres has presented Toronto-based Datatel with a unique growth opportunity, says CEO Barnard Crespi. Until recently, payment processing was not a primary business for Datatel, which for the past 15 years has mainly been providing outsourced IVR (interactive voice response) services for call centres south of the border. Read the article
June 29, 2010--The quarterly American Express Small Business Index has climbed to its highest level in more than a year as 35 per cent of respondents reported business is improving. The index suggests Canadian small business owners believe that business conditions are turning, as the number of small business owners who are hopeful has stabilized.
The index, which is a key part of the quarterly American Express Small Business Monitor and measures and assigns a grade to the confidence, performance and attitudes of small business owners from coast to coast, climbed to 66 per cent, or a letter grade of C, in May, compared with 61 per cent or C- in March 2009 when American Express and Angus Reid Public Opinion began tracking attitudes of Canadian small business owners during the depths of the recession. Read the article
June 21, 2010--U.S.-based RegaloCard has signed a distribution deal for its gift card-based money transfer service with Canadian prepaid card network operator SelectCore. The deal marks the first time that RegaloCard’s service will be available in Canada. Read the article
June 21, 2010 --Multi-channel bill payment processor TIO Networks is expanding its operations in Canada. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company had until recently concentrated its activities in the U.S. where it provides bill payment and prepaid mobile phone top-ups at 21,000 automated kiosk and clerk-assisted locations.
Now TIO has signed a deal with new Canadian 3.5G wireless carrier Mobilicity to provide cellphone account payment and activation at 250 dealer locations across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The service will be provided via TIO’s PC-based point-of-sale software and processing system, TIO Express.Read the article
June 18, 2010 --The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today announced the launch of the Task Force for the Payments System Review to help "guide the evolution" of the payments system in Canada.
“Today, Canadians can pay for things in a bewildering number of ways, even by tapping a cell phone against a scanner,” said Minister Flaherty. “It is important to ensure the payments system facilitates the introduction of new and exciting technologies to the benefit of users without compromising Canadian safety and efficiency or consumer protection." Read the article
Note--Payments Business will be following this story and publishing frequent updates online.
June 17, 2010 --Interac Association, Canada's leading payment network, has successfully carried out a series of contactless debit transactions using Scotiabank debit cards and TD Merchant Services' point-of-sale terminals. The new contactless enhancement of Interac(R) Direct Payment, called Interac Flash, increases the functionality of Interac branded debit cards by leveraging dual interface chips that give cardholders the ability to carry out a point-of-sale debit transaction using the contact or contactless feature of the card. Read the article
June 15, 2010--CIBC’s deal to buy Citigroup’s C$2.1 billion Canadian MasterCard credit card portfolio marks the first major move by a Canadian bank into both Visa and MasterCard issuing, says IDC Financial Insights senior analyst Rob Burbach. Since November 2008, when Canada’s Competition Bureau ended its ban on duality, Canadian financial institutions have officially been able to issue and acquire both MasterCard and Visa credit cards. However, prior to CIBC’s deal with Citi, there had been very little obvious change in the credit card market, with only one major Visa issuer, RBC Royal Bank of Canada, launching a MasterCard-branded credit card, in partnership with WestJet Airlines. Read the article
June 15, 2010 --A new credit card from Walmart Canada allows cardholders to earn Walmart Rewards on everyday spending to redeem on everyday needs and wants, the company says. Walmart Canada Bank, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart Canada Corp., unveiled the Walmart Rewards MasterCard. Read the article
June 14, 2010--Citi Cards Canada Inc. has agreed to sell a substantial portion of the assets comprising its MasterCard credit card business to Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Citi Cards is the administrative agent of Broadway Credit Card Trust and the seller and servicer under Broadway's securitization program. Completion of the sale transaction will be subject to Citi Cards obtaining necessary regulatory approvals, to certain closing conditions for the benefit of CIBC or Citi Cards, and to the satisfaction of certain other conditions, including obtaining required consents to proposed changes to Broadway's securitization program. Read the article
June 14, 2010 --CIBC, the leading credit card issuer in Canada, announced today that it is broadening its reach in the Canadian marketplace through the acquisition of a $2.1-billion credit card portfolio from Citigroup's ("Citi") Canadian MasterCard business. Through this transaction, CIBC, which had more than $14 billion in outstanding credit card balances at April 30, 2010, will become the largest dual credit card issuer in Canada. Read the article.
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor June 8, 2010--Wal-Mart has announced plans to launch a bank in Canada on June 15, 2010, after the U.S.-based retailer received a banking license from Canadian financial regulators. The bank is expected to be known as Wal-Mart Canada Bank and La Banque Wal-Mart du Canada.
In September 2008, Wal-Mart applied to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) for permission to offer a range of financial services in Canada. It already offers money transfer services and ATMs at its Canadian stores. Press reports have speculated that Wal-Mart will offer low-cost credit cards as part of its banking offering. Read the article
By Robin Atfield, News Editor
June 6, 2010 --Visa Canada says it has seen “slow but steady progress” in merchant acceptance of Visa payWave-enabled contactless cards in Canada (see story below). “We’ve actually seen an upsurge in the last few months,” Shirley Matthew, Head of Chip Platforms at Visa Canada, tells Payments Business. Read the article
May 26, 2010--Visa Canada announced a new contactless payments initiative across Canada through its Visa payWave technology. The roster of Visa payWave-enabled merchants continues to grow, enabling Canadians to make secure, more convenient transactions and experience fewer and quicker line-ups when buying a cup of coffee, a bite to eat or other every day purchases. Visa payWave allows cardholders to simply "wave and go" by waving their card in front of terminals without the need to physically insert the card, sign, or enter a PIN into a point-of-sale device.Read the article
May 25, 2010 --American Express Incentive Services, LLC (AEIST) is now InteliSpend Prepaid Solutions, LLC. The name change comes roughly three months after Maritz Holdings, Inc. purchased American Express Company's minority interest in AEIS. Read the article
by Robin Arnfield, News Editor
May 17, 2010--Canada Post is now offering the MoneyGram money transfer service across virtually its entire network of government-owned post offices and retailer-owned post outlets. MoneyGram announced on May 12, 2010 that Canada Post had added over 3,000 locations to the 3,000 locations that already offered MoneyGram transfers. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor May 3, 2010--Deloitte Canada has published a report outlining significant changes to the Canadian credit card landscape. The report, Charting a new course for the credit card industry, says that, in the wake of record industry losses, consumer bankruptcies and the recently announced voluntary Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada, the credit card industry has been transformed from one of the most profitable areas of lending to one of the least. According to Deloitte, two things are clear: issuer strategies need to change and, in many cases, consumers will benefit.Read the article
by Robin Arnfield, News Editor
April 22, 2010--American Express Canada is set to widen the roll out of its American Express gift cards to other retailers apart from Shoppers Drugmart and Pharmaprix. Last November, Amex Canada launched its first gift card in Canada, making it available initially exclusively through branches of Shoppers Drugmart and Pharmaprix. The cards only display Amex’s branding – there is no retailer’s logo on them. Read the article
April 21, 2010 --Visa Inc will buy CyberSource Corp, a company that helps retailers accept online payments, to boost its business in fast-growing areas such as emerging markets and online commerce.Visa, the world's largest credit and debit card processor, would pay $26 a share, or about $2 billion, for CyberSource. That amounts to a premium of nearly 34 percent over CyberSource's closing share price on Tuesday.Visa's shares edged 1.1 percent lower to $93.03, while CyberSource's surged 31.8 percent to $25.62. CyberSource was the second-most active stock on Nasdaq on Wednesday.
Read the article
Apriil 21, 2010 --Canada’s Moneris Solutions is in with a chance to further its global expansion ambitions as its bid for UK processor Global Merchant Services goes forward to the second round. The unit is up for sale by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), following a restructuring plan agreed by the UK-based bank with the European Commission. Read the article
April 16, 2010--The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today released a Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada, which the minister says promotes fair business practices and ensures that merchants and consumers understand the costs and benefits associated with credit and debit cards. Read the release
April 16, 2010 ---In a press release sent out today, the Payments Accountability Council (PAC), led by Retail Council of Canada (RCC), the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors (CCGD) and reportedly backed by more than 250,000 Canadian merchants, applauds Finance Minister Flaherty and the Government of Canada for announcement of a code of conduct for the Canadian debit and credit markets. Read the release
April 16, 2010--TD Canada Trust has become the latest Canadian bank to offer mobile applications for iPhones and iPod touch devices. As well as mobile banking via TD’s EasyWeb Internet banking site, customers can use their wireless devices for wealth management and insurance. They also get a branch and ATM locator which will help them avoid bank fees. Using iPhone applications, banks are able to offer more varied services to their customers than on traditional mobile banking platforms. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
April 12, 2010 --Texas-based payments company Rêv Worldwide is looking to expand into the Canadian and US prepaid card and m-payments markets after the successful launch in March 2010 of an investment fund by backers MPower Ventures. Founded by brothers Roy and Bertrand Sosa in June 2008, Rêv Worldwide has a proprietary processing platform and distribution network which can be used by financial institutions, telecoms operators and merchants for delivering mobile payment and prepaid card services. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
April 12, 2010 --Robert Cattral, who has a PhD in Computer Science, has just been sentenced to seven years in jail by the Ontario Superior Court for knowingly supplying card fraud technology to international terrorists and criminals. In the 1990s, Robert Cattral and Catherine Brunet started a business in Ottawa known as Canadian Barcode and Plastic Card Supply Inc. According to indictment documents, the company sold various devices such as blank magnetic-stripe cards, magnetic-stripe card readers, printers, embossers, and data loggers. It also sold the software for transferring financial card data from a credit card or data logger to a blank magnetic-stripe card. Read the article
March 22, 2010 --The Canadian Payments Association's Board of Directors has approved the CPA's Payments Strategy: Vision 2020, enabling the Association to move forward with initiatives that support the dynamic changes to the Canadian payments industry. Read the article
March 29, 2010--A major new study of over 1,900 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and senior finance executives from 81 countries and 35 industries worldwide reveals that more than 60 percent of CFOs plan major changes to respond to the new economic climate. CFOs and senior finance executives believe the already intense pressure on three fronts -- reducing the enterprise cost base, making faster, more accurate decisions and providing more transparency to external stakeholders will increase dramatically over the next three years. Read the article
March 25, 2010 --The Canadian Acquirers Association, a not-for-profit body that acts as an educational forum for Canadian payment acquiring and processing entrepreneurs, is planning a second event for its members. The association was founded in June 2008, with its inaugural event sponsored by Pivotal Payments and VersaPay. Its board consists of Adam Atlas (http://www.adamatlas.com/), an attorney-at-law who represents Canadian payment companies, Anil Bissa of CardSolve International, Kevin Turko of Data Shapers, Michael Gokturk of VersaPay and Michael Jaffe of NXGEN Payment Systems. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
March 25, 2010--Vancouver-based hyperWALLET Systems has launched a mobile airtime top-up service, enabling Canadian residents to send airtime credits to cellphones owned by friends and relatives abroad. The new airtime service follows hyperWALLET's recent launch of a global money transfer service for the Canadian marketplace. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor March 24, 2010--Tio Networks, the Vancouver, BC-based bill payment processor, says transactions over its network grew by 22% year-on-year in its second quarter to January 30. Read the article
BMO launches first World Elite MasterCard in Canada
March 24, 2010--BMO Bank of Montreal has become the first Canadian bank to launch a World Elite MasterCard credit card. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
March 20, 2010--A report by Moody’s Investor Service says that the Canadian credit card sector, which finished 2009 at historically poor performance levels, will return to stability in 2010. The New York-based credit ratings agency says that Canada’s unemployment rate and personal bankruptcy filings – two key drivers of credit card performance – have recently demonstrated signs of stabilization. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
March 16, 2010--RBC Royal Bank of Canada has become the first Canadian bank to take advantage of the lifting of a ban on Canadian credit card issuers offering both MasterCard and Visa cards. In partnership with RBC, WestJet Airlines Ltd has launched the WestJet RBC World MasterCard and the WestJet RBC MasterCard. With each credit card, cardholders earn WestJet dollars on everyday purchases. These dollars can be redeemed as part payment for WestJet flights or vacations, with no redemption grids, blackouts or minimum spend requirements.Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
March 10, 2010--UK-based Level Four has teamed up with France’s Galitt to provide technology to help Canadian ATM deployers test their networks’ compliance with the EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) standard for secure chip card transactions. The two firms say their technology will enable Canadian financial institutions to reduce the cost of testing their ATMs in the run-up to the 2012 deadline for EMV migration. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor
March 8, 2010--EnStream, an m-payments joint venture between three Canadian wireless carriers, has announced a three-month trial of a sticker that turns cellphones into contactless payment devices. In the week since the trial was launched on March 3, 2010, around 200 consumers have signed up, along with retailers such as PetroCanada and McDonalds.
The Zoompass Tag sticker, which uses MasterCard’s PayPass contactless technology, was developed by Germany’s Giesecke & Devrient. It measures 43 mm by 33 mm and can be attached to any cellphone. To make purchases, consumers tap their phones against PayPass-enabled point-of-sale terminals. Read the article
By Robin Arnfield, News Editor March 7, 2010--PayPoint, a UK-based bill payment service provider, has signed a deal to buy Vancouver-based Verrus Mobile Technologies and its subsidiary Verrus UK.
Verrus provides services enabling consumers to pay for parking by credit or debit card using their cellphones in North America, the UK, Australia and France. It was founded in Vancouver in 2000 and entered the British market in 2004. As of March 2010, around 2 million consumers have registered to use Verrus. Read the article
