Jennifer Kingson reports in the New York Times on DataTreasury Corporation, a Melville, NY-based company that has sued others, including several banks and processors, for patent infringement.

DataTreasury, for its part, said in court filings that the two patents were the brainchild of its founder, an inventor named Claudio Ballard. The filings are silent on Mr. Ballard's professional credentials and background, but they do assert that he met at least once with people from J. P. Morgan Chase and that they appropriated his ideas.

Amazon.com has announced some early results from this holiday shopping season including setting a single-day record with more than 2.8 million units ordered, or 32 items per second, worldwide.

Bloomberg reports on new efforts by credit card issuers to press for changes in the US personal bankruptcy code.

Personal-bankruptcy filings have almost doubled in the last decade, reaching 1.58 million for the last 12 months, compared with about 800,000 in 1995, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The Bankruptcy Coalition, a lobbying group that includes JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, says those bankruptcies cost them $40 billion each year. The law the banks want would apply a means test to individuals seeking bankruptcy.

Bloomberg reports that US retailers' holiday gift card sales may have risen to more than $20 billion this holiday season.

Gift card sales may have accounted for 11 percent of holiday expenditures, said Michael Niemira, chief economist for the New York-based International Council of Shopping Centers, more than his earlier forecast of 8 to 10 percent. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, on Dec. 18 said gift-card sales were ``significantly'' above last year's level.

Joel Millman, Robin Sidel, and Carlta Vitzthum report in the Wall St. Journal on Visa's focus on growing the use of card-based money transfers among Latin American migrant workers.

The moves by Visa and banks are challenging the role of Western Union, which has a 14% market share in the fragmented money-transfer business but a much larger share -- as much as 50%, according to some estimates -- of the remittance market to Latin America. Western Union says it can also profit from proliferation of debit cards, since migrants can still use Western Union to wire cash directly into their relatives' card accounts back home.

The Wall St. Journal reports that MasterCard saw an 8.1 percent increase in holiday spending this year.

The projection, compiled by SpendingPulse, a retail sales service from MasterCard Advisors, a consulting unit of MasterCard International, is rosier than holiday expectations inside the retail industry. The National Retail Federation is looking for a 4.5% gain for the season.