Visa USA has announced that it has completed the development of its contactless payment platform and is ready to begin deployment in the US market.

"After successful trials in several regions of the world, we feel we have the right solution and this is the right time for Visa to make contactless technology available in the U.S. market," said Elizabeth Buse, executive vice president, product development and management, Visa USA.  "We want to make sure our Members and merchants have the ability to offer current innovations to their customers, if they choose to do so."

The Anti-Phishing Working Group is reporting that phishing attacks against smaller financial institutions are escalating.

"Overall, the survey and recent field reports tell us that phishers are using advanced crimeware to commandeer larger arrays of Internet technologies and at the same time using them to attack smaller institutions than have been targeted," said APWG Chairman David Jevans.

Jevans added, "It could mean the counter-phishing systems that big banks have deployed are effective and the phishers are moving onto softer targets. It could mean the phishers have enough resources to target institutions in which the probabilities of getting a hit on a broad spam-based attack is relatively low."

Evan Schuman writes in eWeek about the expansion of RFID-based contactless payments. [Tnx: Eric Meyerson]

Credit card companies, through consumer promotions and lower fees for retailers, have been whittling away at the last few cash-friendly refuges. And as though George Washington needed even more disrespect to be heaped upon his picture on the one-dollar-bill, contactless payment systems are now helping to take the green out of greenbacks.

Stephen Bartholomeusz writes in Melbourne's The Age about the Reserve Bank of Australia's actions regarding interchange fees.

The Reserve Bank's painful and painstaking attempts to reform interchange fees for electronic payments is inching towards its logical conclusion. Within two years it is probable that the fees banks and retailers pay themselves for credit card, Eftpos and other electronic transactions will be abolished.

That isn't quite what the RBA said yesterday when it issued draft standards for Eftpos and Visa debit card transactions under which fees would be slashed. It is, however, clearly the direction in which the RBA is heading, and it will inform its planned review of all card systems in 2007.

The Reserve Bank issued a press release yesterday on the subject including draft standards for the EFTPOS and Visa Debit systems.

In the Bank's opinion, the current levels of these fees are not conducive to the efficiency of the Australian payments system. In reaching this opinion, the Bank has considered not just the EFTPOS and Visa Debit systems, but also their interaction with other payment systems, including credit cards. It has also considered how the overall payments system is likely to evolve over time if the current incentives facing merchants, financial institutions and cardholders are left unchanged.

The RBA also announced it is seeking input on how to address the problem of credit card schemes with higher interchange fees being more attractive to issuers and asks whether essentially the same interchange fee should therefore be applied to all schemes.

First Data Corp. announced this morning that it was increasing the dividend paid on its common stock as well as increasing the stock buyback authorization by $2 billion.

Coinstar has announced a gift card mall program for retailers.

Ann All reports in ATM Marketplace.com on Visa USA's decision to create two categories of ATM interchange.

Visa made the change after determining that there were "significant differences in ATM portfolios, in terms of cost, security and cardholder value," said Stacy Pinkerd, senior vice president of Visa's Consumer Debit Products.

Ted Griffith reports for DelawareOnline.com about yesterday's investor briefing by executives of JP Morgan Chase's credit card unit.