Patent attorney Dennis Crouch blogs about a strategy some financial services firm utilize to prevent publication of their patent applications.

Financial institutions have a history of being quite secretive in their practices.  In one sense, this practice stops with the emergence of the patentability option.  In order to obtain a patent, an inventor must publicly disclose the details of the invention.  However, many institutions are opting to request that at least the patent application be left unpublished in order to maintain secrecy of the patent until the date the patent is issued (if ever).

Pascal Burg of Edgar, Dunn and Company has written a comprehensive white paper (PDF) exploring techniques that airlines are using to reduce their payments-related expenses.

We estimate that the total cost of accepting payments by card for the US airline industry amounted to approximately $1.5 billion dollars in 2003 which represents the total merchant fees paid by all US airlines to MasterCard and Visa "acquiring" banks and the likes of Amex and Diners Club. This is equivalent to $12.50 per average airline ticket.

PayPal has announced that Scott Thompson has joined the company as senior vice president and chief technology officer.

"Scott is one of the most respected technology professionals in the financial services industry, and we are thrilled that he is joining the PayPal team," said Jeff Jordan, president of PayPal. "Scott's expertise will help lead PayPal to our ultimate goal of becoming the global online payments standard."

Thompson comes to PayPal from Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization. As executive vice president of technology solutions at Inovant, he was responsible for all development, support and maintenance of Visa's global payment system, which processed tens of billions of transactions in 2004.

Anne Chen reports in eWeek on MasterCard's web services platform.

The Electronic Authentication Partnership (EAP) has announced the election of its first board of directors. The EAP promotes interoperability among public and private online authentication systems.

The obstacle to widespread online authentication isn't technology, it's a lack of accepted rules for trust," said James Lewis, the Interim Chair of the EAP and Director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "The EAP's Trust Framework (PDF) is a major achievement by a public-private partnership that gives companies and individuals a way to determine how much they can trust a credential issued by someone else."

"In conducting the pilots," Lewis said, "the EAP will be able to count on the oversight of a talented Board that draws from a broad cross-section of the authentication industry."

Kristi Areliano writes in the Denver Post about Colorado legislators considering new limits on terms and fees for gift cards.

Ian Katz reports in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about Joe Lopez and his complaint filed last week against Bank of America. The complaint is believed to be the first legal action by a customer against a U.S. bank to recover money apparently stolen by cybercriminals.

Deluxe and Primary Payment Systems have announced they're forming an alliance to help financial institutions perform identity verification at their new account desks in real time.