A new study by PSE Consulting in the UK forecasts that Europeans are expected to spend €75 billion using prepaid cards by 2010, representing 2.3 billion transactions per annum – an increase of 110% per annum over the next five years.

An on-going issue with signature-based debit cards - especially for consumers who have low balances - is the impact of debit card authorization holds have in tying up what remaining balance might be in the consumer's checking account. Here's a story by Polyana da Costa of the Pensacola News Journal that reports on some stories of local consumers and merchants who've been impacted by this practice.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reports from Japan that "private financial institutions have reached broad agreement on the introduction in May of cash cards that contain an embedded integrated circuit, which will enable them to be used at automated teller machines at different institutions, according to sources. The move is aimed at improving the convenience of IC cash cards, which are more secure than conventional cards as they are difficult to counterfeit."

Lisa Bachelor writes for the UK's Observer about how "six months on from the mandatory introduction of chip and PIN cards, increasing theft on the Internet is forcing banks and retailers to trial new technology to combat card fraud." Because of the increased difficulty in counterfeiting cards as a result of chip and PIN, fraudsters in the UK are now focusing on both 'card-not-present' as well as non-chip and PIN environments outside of the UK.