New Appointments and Legislative News

TransCard appoints new Chief Technology Officer

TransCard provides prepaid debit card solutions branded with Discover Network, MasterCard and Star associations. The company, on 16 July 2008, announced the appointment of David Samples as Chief Technology Officer. Mr Samples previously served as Chief Operating Officer of Instruction Management and Director of Systems Architecture at US Xpress Enterprises.

TransCard's Chief Executive Officer, Craig Fuller said, “David is a very capable and proficient individual. I look forward to working closely with him to shape the technological future of this company; with him as part of our team, I know we will continue to be successful while safely and efficiently expanding our services.”

Futura Card Services appoints new President and CEO

Futura Card Services provides services for prepaid MasterCard debit card products and is also engaged in the marketing and distribution of the same. The company, on 16 July 2008, announced the appointment of Keven Lake as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to this, Keven Lake has held various executive management positions in different divisions of IBM Global Services and US Internetworking.

Board member, Carlos Kang said “Keven brings the right combination of experience in retail, financial services and information technology to grow the Futura brand.”

Mocapay names new CEO

Mocapay is a provider of mobile payment and marketing services. On 3 July 2008, the company announced the appointment of Kevin Grieve as Chief Executive Officer, who would be in charge of the strategy, execution and delivery of Mocapay's mobile marketing and payments platform. He would also help in building alliances with credit issuers, retailers, wireless carriers and merchant acquirers.

The founder and ex-Chief Executive Officer of Mocapay, Rod Stambaugh said “Kevin Grieve is the right person to guide the maturation of Mocapay. Kevin has an incredible track record of successes in our industry with the experience and passion to deliver at the extremely high degree of effectiveness our company requires.”

Comdata appoints Senior Vice President of information technology

Comdata, engaged in providing payment solutions, on 8 July 2008, announced the appointment of Todd Joseph as Senior Vice President of information technology (IT). Prior to this, Joseph served as Vice President of infrastructure services and information technology mergers and acquisitions for the company. He was also in charge of technology due diligence and post merger integration.

President of Comdata, Brett Rodewald said, “Todd's industry expertise and technology depth make him the ideal fit to oversee Comdata's IT operations. Over the past few years, Todd has been a key contributor to ensuring our IT and network systems, which has been instrumental in securing Comdata's reputation as the leader in electronic payment innovation.”

US bill to help West Indians

On 22 July 2008, the US Congress approved the Money Services Business Act 2008. This act aims to give the money transfer sector of the financial services industry, leeway in continuing to remit the funds of immigrants to their relatives back home.

The new bill passed is expected to help the West Indians, whose families rely mainly on remittances sent by the migrants staying in the US. According to a World Bank study, which measured the impact of remittances in per capita terms, the impact of bill will be significant on the West Indians (in Barbados' case, the remittance was US$519 (BDS$1, 016) for every man, woman and child in 2005).

HK's anti-money laundering efforts hailed

On 21 July 2008, international antimoney laundering groups - Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering and the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering - appreciated the steps taken by Hong Kong to combat the crime and counter terroristfinancing regimes. In addition, the report also commended Hong Kong for its good legal structure and conviction rate for money laundering offences, clear and broad obligations for reporting suspicious transactions and strong law enforcement. As a taskforce member, Hong Kong is obliged to adopt 40 recommendations for fighting money laundering and 9 special recommendations for fighting financing of terrorism.