Discover Financial

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Discover, Telcos plan mobile payment venture

Mobile phone companies Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc and T-Mobile USA are poised to announce plans for a venture offering mobile payments services, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

Discover Financial Services and Barclays will also announce they are participating in the joint venture, which will allow consumers to pay for purchases with their cellphones, the people said. Get the full story »

NHL signs U.S. sponsorship deal with Discover

The National Hockey League has signed a one-year sponsorship deal making Discover Financial Services the league’s official U.S. credit card, and its first financial sponsor in that market.

The deal, worth several million dollars including advertising commitments by Discover, puts the NHL’s overall sponsorship revenue about 30 percent above last year’s rate, said Keith Wachtel, NHL senior vice president of corporate sales and marketing. Get the full story »

More credit card fees ahead

Less than a year after the passage of new laws limiting banks’ ability to impose certain fees on credit and debit cards, Bank of America Corp., Discover Financial Services, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other lenders are using different tactics to boost their fee income.

Some are raising minimum payments on certain customers’ accounts in order to increase late penalties. Others are ramping up credit-protection insurance programs and charging customers for coverage without permission. Still others are pushing aggressively into high-fee prepaid cards, which are exempt from most of the new rules. Get the full story »

Discover says credit union members more positive

U.S. members of credit unions have a more positive view of their personal finances than people who don’t belong to one, according to a survey by Discover Financial Services

Most credit unions, which are member owned and nonprofit, didn’t engage in the kinds of speculative financial practices that hurt many banks. Get the full story »

Discover reports more on-time card payments

Credit card default rates mostly fell in September, but improvements in late payments slowed for most of the major card issuers. American Express, Discover, Chase, Bank of America and Citibank all submitted regulatory filings Friday that said September charge-offs fell to the lowest level this year.

Citi selling $1.6B retail credit card assets to GE

Citigroup is selling $1.6 billion in retail credit card assets to GE Capital as the bank continues to shed smaller businesses to focus on its core consumer banking operations. Get the full story »

Shareholder sues to bar Discover’s Citi deal

A Student Loan Corp. shareholder has sued to block the sale of the company by majority owner Citigroup Inc. because it benefits the Wall Street bank at the expense of minority investors, according to a lawsuit.

Citigroup, which owns 80 percent of the Stamford, Connecticut-based student lender, agreed last week to sell it to Discover Financial Services for $600 million. Get the full story »

Discover eyes mortgage, checking deals

Discover Financial Services, fresh from a deal to buy Citigroup’s private student loan assets, is also considering ways to enter the mortgage and checking businesses, Chief Executive David Nelms told Reuters on Monday. Get the full story »

Discover shares up on news that it beat expectations

Discover Financial Services reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Monday as charge-offs fell and consumers spent more on their credit cards, sending its shares up about 3 percent.

The credit card lender and transaction processing network reported profit of $260.6 million, or 47 cents per share, well above analysts’ average expectations of 38 cents per share. Get the full story »

Discover profit falls due to year-ago settlement

Credit card company Discover Financial Inc. says third-quarter net income fell, but profits in the year-earlier period received a big boost from a lawsuit settlement.

Net income was $258.2 million, or 47 cents cents per share. That compares with $552.9 million, or $1.07 per share, last year, which included a $287 million settlement of antitrust litigation involving Visa and MasterCard. Get the full story »

Discover Card charge-offs rise in August

Discover Card wrote off balances for nonpayment at a higher rate in August than the prior month, after seeing improvement the two prior months.

Heartland to pay Discover $5M for data breach

Payments processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc. on Wednesday said it will pay $5 million to Discover Financial Services Co. to resolve issues between the companies related to a 2008 data breach.

Discover: Small business confidence at 18M low

Confidence in the economy among small business owners is at its lowest point in 18 months, according to a new monthly survey by Riverwoods-based Discover Financial Services. Get the full story »

Discover Financial sponsoring Orange Bowl

Discover Financial Services, a distant fourth in the credit-card industry, is raising its profile as the new title sponsor of one of college football’s most prestigious bowl games – the Orange Bowl, of course.

The Riverwoods-based company, which has orange in its corporate logo, replaces longtime sponsor FedEx, which ended its 21-year run.

Discover joins Allstate Corp. as a Chicago-area sponsor of a major college football bowl game. Get the full story »

Credit card rates hit highest level in 9 years

(Getty Images)

(Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)

Interest rates continue to tumble for the U.S. Treasury, companies and home buyers alike. But for a large portion of 381 million U.S. credit-card accounts, borrowing rates have been moving only one way: up.

And average rates are likely to climb further soon. New credit-card rules that took effect Sunday limit banks’ ability to charge penalty fees. They come on top of rule changes earlier this year restricting issuers’ ability to adjust rates on the fly. Issuers responded by pushing card rates to their highest level in nine years. Get the full story »