Evan Schuman reports for eWeek on changes by Visa USA effective July 18th to the merchant levels for its Cardholder Information Security Program. The article reports that Visa has changed the definition of Level 2 so that it applies to all merchants not just ecommerce merchants. Level 2 is defined as any merchant processing 1,000,000 to 6,000,000 Visa transactions per year. Level 1 continues to apply to all merchants regardless of acceptance channel while Levels 3 and 4 continue to apply only to ecommerce merchants. According to the table on the Visa web site, merchants newly included in the Level 2 definition will have until Sept. 30, 2007 to be validated as complying with the PCI Data Security Standard.

The Payments Card Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has announced that three new papers have been added to its website.

SmartPay Jieyin Ltd has announced a China mobile payments partnership with China Minsheng Banking Corp., Ltd.

Clint Riley reports for the Wall St. Journal on efforts by Citigroup to use some its CitiFinancial offices as "gateway branches" for opening new Citibank checking or savings accounts.

Luladey Tadesse reports for the Gannett News Service that "consumers fed up with writing checks and the hassle of buying stamps increasingly are switching to paying bills online." She reports that about 35 percent of bills were paid online last year by Americans, up from 25 percent in 2004, according to the online market research firm Harris Interactive Inc.

Maria Bruno-Britz reports for Bank Systems & Technology that Americans are ready to use their mobile phones for payments. Accroding to a recent survey of 800 consumers conducted by Visa USA in which "61 percent of participants between 25 to 34 years of age said they were interested in making purchases with their mobile phone." Bruno-Britz reports on comments Michele Janes, director of the product innovation and coordination team at Visa who says "over the past six to 12 months, we've seen a drastic increase in interest among [card] issuers in mobile payments. Several of our issuers are asking about this."

Lee Hyo-sik reports for the Korea Times that, according to the Bank of Korea, "Korean consumers had an average of 3.35 credit and debit cards each as card companies issued about 161 million cards in 2004 when the country’s population stood at about 47 million." This compares with an average of 5.15 cards issued per person in the US,3.05 cards per person in Japan, Singapore with 2.39 and Britain with 2.36.

Binyamin Appelbaum reports for the Charlotte Observer on Wachovia's plans to return to the credit card business on Monday, replacing its earlier deal where MBNA issued cards on its behalf. Following the acquisition of MBNA by Bank of America earlier this year, Wachovia exercised its option to pull the card issuing away from MBNA, receiving a $100 MM breakup fee from MBNA in the process. Appelbaum reports that company executives say that Wachovia's "new Visa cards will feature relatively lenient rules and penalties, including absolution for one late payment every 12 months." "We're choosing to play the game differently," said Steve Boehm, Wachovia's head of credit cards.

AccountingWEB.com reports on last week's testimony by attorney W. Stephen Cannon, representing the Merchants Payments Coalition, to the Senate Judiciary committee accusing Visa and MasterCard of violating federal antitrust laws through their practice of setting the interchange rates charged by banks to complete consumer transactions.

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