A couple of months ago we (along with some friends) announced BayPay -- a brand new professional networking group for payments professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We'll be holding the first face-to-face meeting of BayPay next Tuesday, May 10th, at 6 PM.

If you're interested in attending this first meeting and haven't already joined BayPay, please let us know via our feedback form and we'll tell you how you can participate. Last call!

American Express has announced a new Platinum Business Premium Cash Rebate Card designed for high-spending small business owners.

MasterCard this morning announced first quarter 2005 volumes of $379.6 billion, a 10.9 percent increase over the same period in 2004 for gross dollar volume on MasterCard-branded cards. Purchase volume increased 11.4 percent to $277.2 billion while the number of MasterCards issued worldwide rose 11.2 percent to a total of 697.9 million cards.

Red Herring profiles the Interra Project created by former Visa International CEO Dee Hock and Greg Steltenpohl, founder of Odwalla.

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