MasterCard International has announced that it has named Walter M. Macnee President of the Americas, effective May 15, succeeding Ruth Ann Marshall.

The Toronto Star reports on increasing concerns by consumer groups in Canada about the error rate associated with pre-authorized debits against consumer checking accounts - citing more than 1,000 erroneous postings each day to consumer accounts.

Peralte Paul reports for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about a recent deal between card processor TSYS and Exante Financial Serfvices, the banking unit of United Health Group.

American Express has announced the American Express Benefits Plus Card, a new healthcare payment product that provides access to cardholder healthcare flexible spending accounts (FSA). In addition, American Express announced separate agreements with PayFlex and WageWorks, leading consumer-driven tax-advantaged spending account administrators, to offer the Benefits Plus Card to corporations and their employees.

First Data Corp. has announced a multi-year agreement to provide global merchant processing to Microsoft for global online consumer and business clients of Microsoft.

David Breitkopf and Isabelle Lindenmayer report in this morning's American Banker on proposed changes to the Visa USA board of directors - to be voted on tomorrow - including the addition of four independent non-bank board members. Last November, Visa USA had announced it would be adding eight independent directors and today's article says Visa continues to interview candidates for the four remaining director seats.

Ruth Simon of the Wall St. Journal takes a comprehensive look at the current state of home equity lending and what some banks are doing to keep their home equity lending business growing with promotions, special deals, etc. in the face of higher interest rates. This has become a big business for banks as "balances on home-equity lines of credit have climbed 71% to $543.2 billion over the last two years."

Visa International, in collaboration with Maybank, Maxis Communications Berhad (Maxis) and Nokia, has launched its first Mobile Visa Wave Payment Pilot in Malaysia. Two hundred participants who are both Maybankard Visa cardholders and Maxis mobile phone subscribers will participate in the four-month trial beginning today.

Robert Scott, Editor, Accounting Technology, reflects back on the heyday of account aggregation and wonders whether enough time has passed that it's beginning to come around again. He notes that Intuit is looking for a Vice President & Business Leader for its Financial Institution Group - "whose responsibilities will include Customer Central, the former TekPortal, a data aggregation technology that Intuit acquired in August."

The Reserve Bank of Australia has finalized new reforms it will be imposing on the debit card systems in Australia, significantly reducing fees paid by banks to merchants for EFTPOS transactions (Australia has "reverse interchange" in that scheme), significantly reducing interchange paid to bank issuers on Visa Debit transactions, forcing Visa to amend its rules for Visa Debit acceptance to allow merchants to accept Visa Credit cards but not Visa Debit cards and allowing merchants to surcharge Visa Debit transactions.

Katy Matlock reports for Baylor's Lariat Online on college students and credit cards. According to Matlock, Dr. Franklin Potts, associate professor of finance at Baylor, describes credit card issuers as having "several sneaky ways to catch consumers".

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• Bank of America Names O. Temple Sloan Lead Director
• AsiaPay Launches New PrePayment and MicroPayment Platform Service in Asia - - 'GamePay.com' and 'pPay.com'
• Wilmington News Journal: BofA network could add jobs in Del.
• CardRatings.com: Credit Card Interest: You're Paying Much More Than You Think Thanks To Uncle Sam
• Digital Transactions: A BankAmericard Redux Poses Risks But Could Reap Rewards for BofA
• UK: 'Bullying' Paypal's heavy tactics
• BoNY launches payroll card
• Official Payments Now Processing California Payroll Tax Deposit Payments; Convenient and Secure Credit Card Payments Available Through EZPAY
• Phoenix: Chase, D-backs fan loyalty program sign credit card deal
• Visiongain: Mobile Device Security Conference - London, June 5-7
• Wells Fargo annual meeting was fertile ground for controversy