Intuit and Google have announced a strategic alliance "designed to help millions of small businesses promote themselves online using a variety of popular Google services built into most QuickBooks 2007 products." Separately, Intuit announced that it has acquired StepUp Commerce, a San Francisco-based provider of services that "enable local businesses to convert online shoppers into in-store customers", and that StepUp's technology platform will power the new QuickBooks Product Listing Service that is part of its Google alliance.

Jane Kim reports for the Wall St. Journal on an expected announcement by American Express today that it is working with New York real-estate firm Moinian Group to allow condominium buyers to pay for their down payments using their American Express cards. Talk about a big ticket purchase!

Constantine von Hoffman writes for BrandWeek how some marketers are discovering the "underbanked" - pointing out that the "fastest growing product in the financial services sector is prepaid debit cards, most of which are being bought and used by people who don't have a bank account. Similarly, prepaid is currently the hottest segment of the wireless category."

Digital Insight and Metavante have announced agreements that expand their strategic relationship. Under the terms of one new agreement, the partnership will now include NYCE Network real-time payments technology that gives online banking users of Digital Insight client financial institutions the ability to securely conduct inter-institution account-to-account (A2A) funds transfers. A second agreement provides Digital Insight client financial institutions the ability to resell or directly issue stored-value gift cards to their customers through Digital Insight's online banking interface or at their branch.

First Data Corp. has announced that Susan Henricks has returned to First Data as president of First Data Resources. Henricks was a key member of the First Data leadership team in 1998 and 1999, serving as president of First Data Enterprises within First Data Resources. She was responsible for Client Services and was appointed to the position of President, Donnelley Marketing when it was sold by First Data to Info USA in late 1999. For the last six years Henricks has been with RR Donnelley, an $8 billion dollar global print leader and the largest printer of telephone directories in the world. For the last five years she has been President, Directories, responsible for the business of printing Yellow Pages Directories and telephone directories.

The HealthPay Group based in San Francisco has announced its formation saying that it intends to "focus on the convergence of the healthcare and financial services industries that has been triggered by the rapid expansion of consumer directed healthcare accounts and the popularity of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)."

Catwalk Distribution in partnership with Trycera Financial, has announced the Model Prepaid MasterCard, a "full service financial tool designed to help professional and aspiring models and actors manage their finances smarter, faster and safer than ever before."

The Reserve Bank of Australia has provided an update on several of the payments systems issues it has been studying including setting the acceptable range for interchange fees in the Australian EFTPOS debit payment service.

Visa International has announced that the sales volume of Visa Business cards worldwide, represented by global small business spend, has reached US$190 billion over a 12-month period, as Visa says small businesses continue to adopt payment solutions that are more convenient and secure than cash and checks.

In a lengthy article, Walter V. Robinson and Beth Healy report for the Boston Globe about how sometimes debt collectors end up targeting the wrong individuals in their debt collection efforts - saying that they had heard from hundreds of consumers where "many said they had been pursued for debts owed by others with identical or similar names; or asked to pay debts for ill or deceased relatives; or besieged by debt collectors for the misfortune of having phone numbers once held by people who defaulted on their debts."

Compliance with the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) project is driving significant challenges in Europe, with payments industry executives at many of the largest financial institutions reporting much higher estimates of investment costs and fearing that business and technology resources will be stretched as a result, according to a recent Accenture survey.

RSA Security has announced results of the company's second annual password management survey, which polled businesses on issues pertaining to password management. More than 1,300 business professionals participated in this global study, which confirmed that the burden of multiple passwords continues to pose significant security risks, and encourages end-user behavior that endangers compliance initiatives.

• Fingerprint Biometrics Leader AuthenTec Joins Near Field Communication Forum
• DataVerify Establishes Marketing Alliance With ComplianceEase to Provide the Mortgage Industry With Powerful Fraud and Compliance Solutions
• 10 Debit Card, Credit Card & Stored Value Card Companies Recently Sign Up to Use StrikeForce's Anti-Fraud Prevention Monthly Service
• Global Payments Europe to Acquire Sarajevo-based Processor, Expanding its Reach Into the Balkan Region

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Gary Kohn, has been named vice president, Investor Relations, for Western Union.