Robin Sidel reports for the Wall St. Journal on plans by JP Morgan Chase to issue millions of new credit cards based upon contactless chip technology.

"It's our intent to create this market by issuing millions of cards," says Tom O'Donnell, a senior vice president in J.P. Morgan's credit-card division.

Sidel reports that Chase's announcement of this new card program is scheduled for tomorrow.

Terri Cullen reports for the Wall St. Journal on fixed rate for the life of the loan balance transfer deals being offered by some credit card issuers.

With a typical balance-transfer offer, card issuers allow new customers to transfer balances and pay 0% on the balance for an introductory period, typically six to nine months. But for a "life of the balance" financing deal, cardholders can transfer outstanding balances from high-interest credit cards to a new card and pay a fixed low-rate finance charge until the transferred balance is paid off.

Joseph Rebello and Michael Schroeder report for the Wall St. Journal on comments made to Congress by Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich in which he said that the Fed expects to propose new rules next year for how credit card issuers must disclose financial information to borrowers. Gramlich's testimony is available online.

Regulation Z and its staff commentary have been reviewed and updated almost continuously, but not comprehensively since 1980. In December 2004, the Board began a comprehensive review of Regulation Z, starting with the publication of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) on the rules for open-end credit that is not home-secured, such as general-purpose credit cards.

The goal of the review is to improve the effectiveness and usefulness of open-end disclosures and substantive protections. The public comment period recently closed, and the Board's staff will be carefully reviewing the comment letters as they consider possible changes to the regulations. We also believe that consumer testing should be used to test the effectiveness of any proposed revisions, and anticipate publishing proposed revisions to Regulation Z in 2006.

Jesse Eisinger reports for the Wall St. Journal on how Alliance Data Systems financially reports the transaction processing vs. credit portions of its business.

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