Kristin Roberts reports for Reuters that Wal-Mart has offered to modify its pending application with the FDIC for a limited purpose bank.

Earlier today, Citibank launched Citibank Direct, a new high yield savings account product.

One of our partners just opened the new Citibank e-savings account -- an interesting and rather positive experience. Read on for details.

Stored Value Systems has announced the results of a national web survey of adults conducted at the end of February revealed that eight in 10 said they would rather receive a gift card to their favorite retailer than any other kind of gift.

I4 Commerce, the company offering the Bill Me Later payment service, has announced it has secured $27.4 million in venture funding led by Kingdon Capital Management and including previous major investors, Crosspoint Venture Partners, Azure Capital Partners and GRP Partners.

Clint Riley reports for the Wall St. Journal on Citibank's launch of a new high yield savings account program competitive with similar accounts offered by ING Direct, HSBC, and Emigrant Savings. Citi's approach, however, also requires consumers to maintain a Citibank checking account. The new e-Savings account is offered on a new website at direct.citibank.com.

The Gulf Marketing Review interviews John Stuart, MasterCard's senior vice president for global sponsorships.

CardRatings.com is urging consumers burdened with high levels of credit card debt to consider using a technique often suggested with mortgages - make payments twice as often and you'll significantly affect the total amount of interest you pay for a given amount of debt.

NACHA has announced Authentication Mandate: Compliance Issues & Revenue Opportunities for Online Banking, a conference focusing on the business opportunities resulting from financial institutions' online authentication capabilities and the recent Federal regulatory guidance on authentication in Internet banking.

Matthew Charles reports for Australia's Herald Sun on the new Altitude Platinum rewards card program launched by Westpac that actually issues each consumer two cards - a co-branded American Express card and a Westpac MasterCard.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has published a staff paper titled “The Topology of Interbank Payment Flows,” (PDF) by Kimmo Soramäki, Morten L. Bech, Jeffrey Arnold, Robert J. Glass, and Walter E. Beyeler.

Michael Jivkov writes for the UK's Independent about yesterday's financial results reported by Neteller and asks the question "is there no end in sight to the company's growth?"

Andrea Coombes reports for MarketWatch on the ABA's report yesterday that the percentage of credit-card accounts that were 30 days or more delinquent fell to 4.27% in the fourth quarter, from 4.74% in the third quarter and down from a record high of 4.81% in the second quarter of 2005.

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