T-Online Venture Fund has announced it has made a 10% investment in Zug, Switzerland-based FIRSTGATE Holding AG, owner of Click&Buy.   » Continue Reading

Ideo describes its involvement with Bank of America's innovation team in the development of the bank's "Keep the Change" debit card program. According to the article, "in less than one year, [Keep the Change] attracted 2.5 million customers, translating into more than 700,000 new checking accounts and one million new savings accounts for Bank of America. Impressed by the unique and intuitive nature of the program, 99% of its subscribers have chosen to keep the service--along with their change."

National Home Furnishings Association (NHFA) and ProfitPoint have announced "a formal agreement to provide the association’s membership base access to state of the art Gift & Loyalty Card programs."   » Continue Reading

Last month, Inc. Magazine profiled San Francisco-based BankServ, telling the inside story of a corporate restructuring the company's CEO Dave Kvederis decided was required in early 2005.

Evan Schuman writes for eWEEK about "what one executive of the $9 billion, 26,000-restaurant Subway chain dubbed "the single largest integrated cash card program in the world." Schuman reports that "Subway has come out with a card that handles payment, instant loyalty rewards and highly targeted promotions that can be tracked by the customer" with the software behind the Subway program provided by Chockstone.

India's Business Standard reports that "Helion Ventures, a $140 million venture fund jointly started by Sanjeev Aggarwal of Daksh fame, is investing in Bangalore-based mobile commerce firm JiGrahak. JiGrahak, which translates into 'Yes Customer', enables mobile commerce and payments through its platform, NGPay (Next Generation Pay). Once downloaded on to your mobile with this platform you can check schedules and buy airline tickets, movie tickets or order a pizza from your mobile phone. All this comes at no cost to a consumer and the company has built in a revenue model through the merchant establishments."

Julie Creswell writes for the New York Times about activity at many banks and financial services firms to patent various financial processes and technologies.

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