On Thursday, the Wall St. Journal's Walter Mossberg provided some blunt advice to consumers about how to avoid the latest scams. At the top of his list: Don't trust email from financial institutions. According to Mossberg, "email is so easily manipulated by crooks that you simply should never, ever consider any email from a financial institution as legitimate."

Philip Lin writes for Pacific Epoch about the recent Smartpay announcement that it would be working with China Minsheng Bank to enable the banks' customers to pay for all sorts of goods and services with SmartPay technology using cellular SMS. Lin concludes "one thing seems likely - the "network effects" in this model will probably drive a "winner takes all" ending. And the winner will be a very valuable company, easily more valuable than any public tech company in China."

Wayne T. Brough, chief economist at FreedomWorks, writes a lengthy opinion piece on the subject of credit and debit card interchange fees suggesting that "the value of card payment networks must be considered before imposing arbitrary caps or restrictions on how these markets function. Regulating this market could harm consumers, innovation, and the economy as a whole."

Kara McGuire writes for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune about personal lending on Prosper.com. "In a recent report, Online Banking Report founder Jim Bruene predicted that, within five years, there could be as many as 100,000 person-to-person loans in the United States per year, worth more than $1 billion."

The FDIC announced yesterday that its Board of Directors had approved a six-month moratorium on applications for deposit insurance by Industrial Loan Companies (ILCs), as well as on notices of change in bank control for existing ILCs. The FDIC will not make any final decisions or accept any future applications for deposit insurance or notices of change in control for ILCs during this period.   » Continue Reading