Ben Charny reports for MarketWatch that "Levi Strauss & Co.'s main Web site has quietly stopped offering Google Inc.'s Checkout online payment feature."

Card Technology writes about Turkey's Garanti Bank and bank management's thoughts on some of the issues associated with contactless/NFC payment deployment in mobile phones. In particular, concerns about using a shared SIM approach - with the mobile network operator. “At end the day, who owns the customer relationship? Who’s the customer going to call if something goes wrong?” Just last month, Garanti Bank became MasterCard's PayPass launch bank in Europe.

First Data International and Argencard S.A. have announced that they have signed an agreement for the acquisition of Argencard by First Data. According to First Data, Argencard is a leading payment processor in Argentina and Uruguay.

ING DIRECT has announced it has launched a new login process using risk-based authentication and site-to-user authentication solutions from RSA Security.

Mentioned earlier here on Payments News, the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) has formally announced that it has launched a major project aimed at authenticating financial institutions to their customers.

eMarketer's Lisa Phillips reviews several recent payments industry surveys. "More than half of all respondents said they prefer electronic payment methods so they do not have to carry cash, while 61% of the respondents ages 25 to 34 said they were interested in making purchases via their cellphones."

Stacy Kaper writes for the American Banker about the new set of bank-issued gift cards guidelines issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency earlier this week - reporting some observers believe that the guidelines may be just the first step by the OCC towards preempting state laws governing gift cards.

The Secure ID Coalition, an affiliation of companies advocating for secure identification technology standards to protect the privacy of citizens, has announced its formation and says it will be educating policymakers at the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) this week. The coalition includes secure card makers Gemalto and Oberthur Card Systems, as well as chip makers Infineon Technologies, Philips Semiconductors and Texas Instruments.

Joan Herbig writes for CSO Magazine about the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard - PCI-DSS and what Chief Information Security Officers should do to to prepare for compliance. Herbig writes "embracing the PCI standard may sound like a big task, and you may wonder if it’s even necessary for your business. However, before you fill up your dance card with other priorities, consider this: As of now, there is no known case of a PCI-compliant network being compromised."

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