Jaikumar Vijayan writes for Computerworld about the MasterCard Online Fraud Monitor that MasterCard announced recently being developed with Basepoint Analytics to address PIN-debit fraud.

Global Payments has announced a referral agreement with Ruesch International. a provider of business-to-business payment solutions. Under the terms of the agreements, Ruesch International will refer clients who have payment card processing needs to Global Payments; and, in turn, Global Payments will refer agent banks and business clients to Ruesch International for their cross-border payment processing and foreign exchange transaction needs.

American Express has announced the American Express SimplyCash Business Card which "gives cash back on virtually all purchases and automatically delivers the rewards each month as a statement credit."

The 21st Anniversary Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends, commissioned by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, reports that "gift cards are expected to continue to be the top gift purchase, with approximately two-thirds (66 percent) of consumers planning to buy them, roughly the same as last year. However, holiday shoppers are planning on buying more of them: this year, consumers intend to buy an average of 4.6 cards, an increase from the 3.9 they bought last year." However, the survey suggests that gift cards may present a "mixed bag for retailers." "Our survey showed that, as a result of buying gift cards last year, 50 percent of consumers spent less time shopping during the holidays and 41 percent bought fewer spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment items," said Pat Conroy, vice chairman and national managing principal of Deloitte's Consumer Business practice. "Successful retailers can benefit from gift-card-and-product bundling, incentives for shoppers to buy additional products while in the store, and other strategies to upsell and cross-sell with gift cards."

MasterCard Incorporated has announced financial results for the third quarter of 2006, reporting net income of $193 million on net revenues of $902 million, a 13.9% increase versus the same period in 2005. MasterCard reported growth in gross dollar volume (GDV), increasing 15.0%, on a local currency basis, to $502 billion and an 18.9% increase in the number of transactions processed. Worldwide purchase volume rose 17.2%, on a local currency basis, during the quarter to $365 billion with the company's customers having issued 818 million MasterCard cards, an increase of 12.6% percent over the same period in 2005. MasterCard held a conference call this morning to discuss the results and has also provided some additional materials online.

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