The September 2006 edition of the First Annapolis Navigator is now available. This month's issue features articles on the U. S. Debit Industry Evolution: 1991 - 2006, Credit Card Issuing: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities in the U.S., The Evolution of the Retail Card Sector: The Long and Winding Road, Lessons from Acquiring's Past, and the Evolution of Business-to-Business Payments.

Debitman Card issued a press release today providing more details about convenience store chain Wawa joining the Debitman payment network and issuing the private-label Wawa Check Card. According to the press release, the new Wawa Check Card will "reward customer loyalty with an initial $5.00 gift card after the first use, followed by cash rebates on every purchase" that will be deposited monthly directly into the customer's bank account that is linked to the Wawa Check Card.   » Continue Reading

CheckFreePay, a business unit of CheckFree Corporation, has announced CheckFreePay Link, a new service that will allow retailers with multiple locations to offer customers the ability to pay bills from leading companies in person.   » Continue Reading

Chase and LSU have announced they have teamed up to bring credit card acceptance to Tiger Stadium for payment at designated concession and merchant stands throughout the stadium. Tiger Stadium also becomes the first college stadium to accept contactless credit card payments with blink technology.   » Continue Reading

A white paper from the Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council, "Transit and Contactless Financial Payments: New Opportunities for Collaboration and Convergence" (PDF) examines trends in both the financial payments and transit industries and discusses how the two industries could work together to make this a reality.   » Continue Reading

Pay By Touch has announced the debut of TrueMe, what the company claims is "the first secure, on-demand biometric authentication service on the Internet."   » Continue Reading

NOVA Information Systems and Discover Financial Services have announced the signing of a merchant acquiring agreement enabling NOVA to add Discover Network card acceptance to its portfolio of payment processing services. NOVA will provide consolidated pricing, underwriting, risk management, processing, settlement, support and reporting to its merchants, simplifying payments processing.   » Continue Reading

ViVOtech and Obopay have announced a partnership to "allow Obopay users to access the ViVOwallet to conveniently and securely pay for retail goods by waving their near field communications (NFC) mobile devices in front of the more than 160,000 retail outlets equipped with a ViVOtech point-of-sale device."   » Continue Reading

• The China Financial Certificate Authority Certifies the Authenex(R) v3.2 A-Key(R) Token for Use in Chinese Financial Transactions
• Equifax Acquires Austin-Tetra, Industry-Leading B-to-B Information Solutions Company
• U.S. Credit Unions Protect Member Data With NeoScale Encryption Solutions
• 99Bill and Sohu Form Strategic Alliance and Launch Joint-Account Payment Service
• American Express Incentive Services and Centive to Collaborate in Driving Sales Performance
• Credit Unions Embrace BioPassword's Authentication Solution to Meet FFIEC Compliance Requirements
• UPEK Teams with Pay by Touch to Bring Biometric Security to the Internet
• Spain Launches ID Card Based on STMicroelectronics' Secure Smart Card Chip
• BasePoint and ComplianceEase Partner to Solve Lender Compliance and Fraud Challenges with a Single Solution
• The PNC Financial Services Group to Acquire Mercantile
• CheckFree Launches Applied Operational Intelligence(SM) Approach to Drive Profitability and Performance for Clients Worldwide
• SAP and SWIFT to Drive Simplicity and Insight in Corporate Banking
• Experian Announces New Commercial Credit Monitoring Plan

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Olin M. Wise has been named chief technology officer for distributed systems at TSYS.