Bankrate.com has released the results of a study of gift cards available from the 20 largest US retailers as well as gift cards offered by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

Americans have embraced gift cards with a big materialistic hug. The National Retail Federation reports that three-fourths of us will buy at least one gift card this holiday season, spending a total of $17.34 billion, up $100 million from last year. The average person will buy three cards, most often for relatives outside their immediate family, spending a total of just over $100.

Equifax and Fair Isaac have announced Score Watch, a consumer FICO credit score monitoring service.

Score Watch continuously monitors subscribers' Equifax credit file for changes that can affect their FICO scores. Once a change is detected, Score Watch alerts subscribers via email or wireless text message, advising them to visit a secured web site for a detailed explanation of the change in credit status. If the subscriber's credit score changes by a significant amount due to changes in their credit file, the Score Watch alert will also include their up-to-date score.

Consumers will have to pay $7.95 per month to monitor their FICO scores using Score Watch. Providian recently started making consumer FICO scores available online to its cardholders for free.

Taco Bell has announced that it will accept credit and debit cards at all of its company-owned restaurants and many of its franchise locations.

Global Payments has announced @dvantage, an Internet connectivity product suite for merchants.

Chairman, President and CEO of Global Payments, Paul R. Garcia, said, "Global Payments is committed to the expansion of connectivity options that make it fast, secure and convenient for merchants of all sizes and types to process Internet transactions. Whether the focus is on security or transaction speed, Global Payments has a solution set that meets both simple and complex requirements."