Speedpass Network has announced that three Boston area Stop & Shop supermarkets are now accepting Speedpass.

Stop & Shop is the first supermarket chain to accept Speedpass and its new features. These features allow customers to 1) link to the store's membership card, 2) link to a personal checking account, 3) instantly enroll for a free Speedpass device onsite, and 4) manage their Speedpass account online. These new enhancements help get customers in and out fast and provide a new level of convenience for Stop & Shop customers.

Bob Sherwood and Jane Croft report on the UK's Office of Fair Trading's decision regarding MasterCard's interchange fees.

The watchdog was annoyed about the fee - 1.1 per cent of any transaction - paid by the retailers' banks to the card-issuing banks. The OFT said this cost was passed on to retailers and, in turn, to consumers. That drove up prices at stores where cards were used. There are about £30bn worth of transactions carried out using MasterCard credit or charge cards each year, so shoppers are coughing up about £330m a year for the interchange fee alone. The OFT said MasterCard had failed to justify the level of its fee. It said the system breached competition rules because it was so widely used and there were no incentives for banks to agree a lower fee.

The full text of the OFT's decision is available online.

Last week, Business Week did a Q&A with 7-Eleven's CEO Jim Keyes about his financial services strategy.

Take 7-Eleven's prepaid Vcom cards. Developed by retail-transaction-services concern Alliance Data Systems (ADS ), Vcom cards will let customers make ATM transactions as well as buy money orders, transfer funds, cash checks, and eventually pay bills. By the end of May, 7-Eleven will outfit 1,000 of its 5,800 U.S. stores with Vcom machines. Now that the U.S. has myriad all-night shopping options, Dallas-based 7-Eleven, which reported net income of $41 million on $10.1 billion in revenues in 2002, is betting big on the service. (Some 73% of 7-Eleven's common stock is owned by IYG Holding, which comprises Ito-Yokado Co. and Seven-Eleven Japan Co.)