Mercator Advisory Group has released a new report that finds walk-in bill payments represent a significant portion of the recurring bill payment market in the United States. According to Mercator, at the current rate of growth, over $80 billion in walk-in bill payments will be processed by 2009.

David Enrich writes for the Wall St. Journal about how the major credit card issuers have been rethinking their marketing strategies and investing more in other channels than mail - even though mail solicitations still account for over half of credit card applications received by issuers.

Ohio Representative Tom Brinkman Jr. writes an opinion piece for Cincinnati.com about the impacts that rising card interchange fees are having on small businesses. According to Brinkman, "these hidden fees drive up the cost of goods and services for all consumers whether they pay with plastic, cash or check, and it makes it difficult for our community retailers to make a living. Some of my community's retailers paid more in interchange fees to Visa and MasterCard than they made in profit. That's not fair and it needs to change."

Chris Woodyard writes for USA TODAY about personalized credit cards. According to Woodyard, "the idea of images of all sorts on credit cards never really caught on until the digital photo revolution, which makes it easy to send a picture via the Internet."

Plaintiff law firms Berger & Montague and Lerach Coughlin have announced that a nationwide settlement agreement has been reached in a consolidated federal class action lawsuit about use of certain payment cards for foreign transactions. Defendants in the case include Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America, Bank One/First USA, Chase, Citibank, Diners Club, HSBC/Household, MBNA and Washington Mutual/Providian. MasterCard this morning has filed an 8-K with the SEC stating it "has agreed to pay $72.48 million, which constitutes its share of defendants' $336 million settlement." As an aside, MasterCard also reported that it had agreed to settle the "Schwartz Matter for $13.44 million, which is expected to be paid in 2007."

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