Booz Allen Hamilton discusses the impact of Google Checkout on the eCommerce market in the UK and concludes that the market for online payments will consolidate around Google Checkout, PayPal, and 1-2 others major players.

If existing providers (predominantly the card issuers and acquirers) do not find an effective counter strategy we believe they could lose 10-20% by 2008 and in the long term up to 30%.

A new survey, conducted by Ipsos Insight and Peppercoin, explores the willingness of Americans to use contactless payments to pay for inexpensive items.

More than 50 percent of respondents, which translates into more than 100 million Americans, would use contactless cards to buy gasoline, items from fast food restaurants or corporate cafeterias, or groceries. More than 40 percent would use contactless cards to pay for convenience store items and transit fares (subway and bus fares and tolls). Almost 40 percent would use contactless cards to buy coffee or pay for parking, and 30 percent (60 million Americans) would use contactless cards for video games or at a vending machine or kiosk.

Survey results also showed a strong alignment between contactless payments, young consumers, and high-income consumers.

Jay Loomis of The Journal News covers the MasterCard annual shareholders meeting as a local story. From a post-meeting interview he captures CEO Robert Selander thoughts on acquisitions.

Selander said that potential acquisition targets include processors of payment transactions. "I think processing is a great area of opportunity for us," he said.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearing today on card interchanges rates, according to this planned hearing agenda. The National Retailers Federation spins their pre-hearing side of the interchange debate here. The Merchants Payments Coalition spins their pre-hearing version here. .

• Retriever Payment Systems Names Hypercom a Key Payment Solutions Provider

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

Ecount has released figures on Banked vs. Unbanked Cardholders: Understanding the Use of Prepaid Cards in Today's Marketplace. The data, based on the Ecount Prepaid Index, outlines baseline spending habits of both groups, as well as provides insight into the role that prepaid cards play in the lives of consumers.   » Continue Reading