Central Bancompany offers swipe-free cards

MasterCard Worldwide has announced that Central Bancompany will become the first bank of its kind to offer debit cards that don't need to be swiped to make a purchase, says KansasCity.com.

The technology is already widely used by national banks and credit card companies, but Central Bancompany is the first community bank holding company to offer the product.

The PayPass cards contain a chip that constantly emits a signal. When passed in front of a special receiver, the signal communicates the purchase information in less than a second.

About 800 bankers from Latin America and other parts of the world chatted about the leading edge in banking technology at this year's CL@B 2007 conference, says Miami Today.

Latin American bankers face a challenge that is in many ways the opposite of their North American counterparts: much of Latin America has more advanced, more recently installed technological infrastructure, but lacks the latest hardware and software to plug into it.

Smart cards using encryption algorithms are booming in popularity because they are virtually impossible to clone or counterfeit.

The Life Insurance Corporation of India has announced its entry into the credit card business, with GE Money and Corporation Bank as equity partners, says The Economic Times.

GE had earlier partnered with State Bank of India in its credit card venture. LIC officials, however, said there was no conflict of interest as the corporation was looking at credit cards largely to serve its own purposes of enabling transactions.

So far, the corporation had not enabled premium payments through credit cards because of high charges.