On May 11-12, 2006 the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago held its annual payments conference - this year titled "Investing in Payment Innovations: Risks and Rewards". Presentations from the conference are now available at the conference web site.

Our friends at TrustedID have recently launched a new blog focused on identity theft and, more importantly, identity theft prevention.

This morning's New York Times has an interview by Jennifer Kingson with the chairman of the ING Group, Michel Tilmant. When asked about increasing competition for the kind of high yield savings accounts offered by ING Direct, Tilman made several interesting comments including that cross-sell is not what ING wants to do - preferring to keep it simple and avoid confusing clients with too many products.