Tag: USA

PayPass Trial in Italy To Tap Prepaid-Card Market

Posted by | Jul 23, 2007 | |

MasterCard Worldwide’s announcement last Friday (19th July) of plans by Italy’s postal bank to pilot PayPass could give contactless payment its first real test in the growing prepaid-card market.

BancoPosta, the financial services arm of Poste Italiane, will launch the trial by the end of the year, offering prepaid cards to new cardholders with the PayPass application onboard, according to MasterCard. Cardholders will be able to tap to pay at a relatively small number of merchant locations in Rome and Milan during the six- to eight-month trial.

Nearly all of the more than 14 million PayPass cards or tokens issued to date are either credit or debit cards. Few are prepaid, said Arne Pache, head of solution deployment in Europe for MasterCard. They include some of the 100,000-plus TaiwanMoney cards banks in Taiwan have issued for use with both merchants and transit operators in southern Taiwan. Also, MasterCard gave away a reported 5,000 novelty wristbands loaded with contactless chips and $25 (18.08 euros) credit to fans at a New York sports stadium last year.

Results of a study commissioned by MasterCard and released by the card scheme in May projected European consumers would spend USD 163 billion (117.9 billion euros) with prepaid cards by 2010, which will be more than a quarter of the global total. The study, conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, projected the United States would account for just under 46 pct of total prepaid-card spending. Italy would rank fifth worldwide, just behind the United Kingdom. The projections include prepaid cards issued by governments to deliver welfare benefits, as well as prepaid gift cards.

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Western Union adds Chief Marketing Officer to Executive Team

Posted by | Jul 23, 2007 | |

The Western Union Company announced the addition of Gail A. Galuppo to its executive management team. As Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Galuppo will direct Western Union’s global branding, marketing strategy, sales management and product development.

“Gail is a veteran in the marketing field with extensive global experience in the financial services and consumer products space,” said Christina A. Gold, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Western Union Company. “Her reputation for innovation and her proven ability to drive new product development has led to impressive growth in all of her previous roles. We look forward to applying Gail’s unique talents and perspective to Western Union’s global growth strategy.”

Galuppo, 43, joins Western Union after two years as the Chief Marketing and Customer Officer for the Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, where she was responsible for marketing and brand strategy for the consumer banking business across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

In addition, Galuppo has 19 years of marketing, brand strategy and customer relationship management experience and has worked in senior-level positions with Sears Holdings Corp., GE Capital Card Services, Discover Card Financial Services and the Illinois CPA Society.

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Americans approve of the new "forever" stamp

Posted by | Jul 23, 2007 | |

Americans apparently think the new “forever” stamp is a good idea.
Postmaster General John Potter says 1.2 billion of them have been sold since April. And he says he expects sales to jump in the months before any new rate increase.
The stamps will always be good for first-class postage, no matter what happens to postal rates.
Americans may be able to use the “forever stamp” to lock-in what they pay to send a letter, but the post office can’t lock-in its own expenses. And Potter says the biggest change he’s dealing with is a new law that limits rate increases to the rate of inflation.

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DHL takes capacity stakes

Posted by | Jul 21, 2007 | |

DHL has long depended on the capacity of others for its cargo lift, but the operator’s latest moves in international and domestic markets show clear signs that controlling capacity is increasingly important in the express business. The carrier took a big step last month toward greater influence – although DHL insists it is not control – of lift with a 49 percent equity stake in ASTAR Air Cargo, one of its two outsourced lift providers in the United States.

The financial interest, for undisclosed terms, in the independent cargo airline that was once DHL Airways follows by several months DHL’s similar equity stake in Polar Air Cargo, a USD 150 million interest that came along with an agreement to guarantee DHL space on Polar’s 747 freighters. DHL also has increased its interest in Blue Dart, the largest domestic air express operator in India to boost its presence in that growing market.

“Our investment in ASTAR signals another major commitment to the U.S. market by DHL,” said Hans Hickler, chief executive officer of DHL Express in the United States.

Hickler joins the ASTAR board under the purchase, joining airline President and CEO John Dasburg and the two non-management owners. That, along with the 49 percent interest and 24.9 percent voting stake, keeps Deutsche Post-owned DHL within the bounds of U.S. legal restrictions against foreign ownership of airlines.

ASTAR attorney Elliott Seiden said the U.S. Department of Transportation had already approved the equity purchase. “We assured them this would not come close to tipping the scales on DOT’s ownership and control rules,” he said.

The only impact on ASTAR’s operations, said Seiden, was that DHL and ASTAR had extended their ACMI contract for U.S. domestic express flights for four years, to 2019, making their relationship “more stable, more secure.”

DHL’s other air capacity provider in the United States, ABX Air, has been seeking to diversify its business to become less dependent on DHL and recently signed a freighter lease agreement with All Nippon Airways. An ASTAR spokesman said DHL equity stake “doesn’t restrain or restrict ASTAR from pursuing” other business.

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Workers at four of DHL's independent carriers join Teamsters

Posted by | Jul 21, 2007 | |

About 70 workers at four independent carriers that serve DHL joined the Teamsters, a union official said Friday.

Workers at E.D. Express and Supreme Delivery Service voted for the move this week, while employees last week ratified the union’s presence at Jennings and Associates, according to Dennis Hower, vice president of Teamsters Local 773 in Allentown.

At a fourth company, Northeastern Express, the employer voluntarily recognized the workers’ right to unionize, Hower said.

The four businesses are on Marcon Boulevard in Hanover Township, Lehigh County.

Meanwhile, about 400 workers at DHL’s distribution center in Upper Macungie Township have been stymied in efforts to unionize.

The American Postal Workers Union organized a news conference July 12 to call attention to the issue and what the union calls the unjust firing of an employee and labor organizer, Eliana Rios.

The Teamsters, which represents about 12,000 workers either at DHL or affiliated contractors, is also attempting to organize workers at the DHL facility in Lehigh County, Hower said Friday.

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