David Pogue blogs about what he calls "the customer service absurdity of the week" - this time it's Citibank's unsolicited credit card solicitations that are driving folks up the wall. According to a Citibank reply to a consumer complaining about having received his fourth credit card offer from them, Citi responded saying that "Citibank does not offer non-customers the choice to opt out of receiving mailed solicitation."

Novato, CA-based ClairMail, a provider of mobile phone-based customer interaction solutions, has announced that it has secured $12 million in Series B financing led by JAFCO Ventures. Previous investors Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Outlook Ventures also participated in the financing. Clairmail provides a mobile customer interaction system customized for retail banking that also addresses multi-factor authentication requirements.

The Merchants Payments Coalition issued a press release today saying that "an independent new report confirms that "merchants get nothing" out of programs that constitute nearly half of the $30.7 billion in credit and debit card interchange fees Visa and MasterCard collect annually in the United States."

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Steve Olsen has been named Chief Operating Officer of CheckFree.
• Judith O'Brien has been named Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Redwood City, CA-based mobile payments provider Obopay.

Pay By Touch has announced that its Paycheck Secure service is now being offered to financial
institutions. Paycheck Secure is a biometric check-cashing service that can help banks and credit unions generate additional non-interest fee-based income while decreasing the risk of fraud and meeting regulatory compliance requirements.

The incentives being offered to consumers and merchants to accept and use alternative payment mechanisms continue to grow. Today, SECURE-eBill, an alternative payment solution that allows consumers to pay for orders from their bank online, announced new incentives for merchants and their customers including offering free transaction processing for new merchants that accept the payment option between Nov. 10 and Feb. 28. SECURE-eBill will also offer a $25 rebate to consumers who shop at the merchants' sites during that time period and pay for online purchases using the payment option.

Prepaid Media has announced that Vicente Fox, President of Mexico, John Philip Coghlan, President and CEO, Visa USA, Tommy Thompson, former US Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Richard “Casey” Hoffman, Texas State Deputy Attorney General for Families and Children will keynote the 2007 Prepaid Card Expo in Las Vegas.

The Board of Directors of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas has announced it has voted unanimously to exclusively endorse Discover Debit, a new signature debit program developed jointly by PULSE EFT Association LP and Discover Network.

ACI Worldwide has announced that Royal Bank of Canada has selected ACI’s Smart Chip Manager "to provide the foundation for its planned migration to chip technology for debit and credit cards. RBC chose Smart Chip Manager as its foundation for initial chip card issuance for market trials, beginning with internal trials in late 2007 and as a future platform for launching innovative payment card products using chip technology."

Visa asks: "what’s the worst thing about waiting in line? For many Americans, it is other customers who hold up lines by digging for change, paying with large bills or writing checks." According to a new Visa survey conducted with 1,000 adults standing in lines throughout New York City, most consumers would actually prefer to clean their bathroom (42 percent), sit in traffic (20 percent) or go to the dentist (18 percent) rather than stand in line.

GE Money has announced that SBI Card, its joint venture with the State Bank of India (SBI), has reached the landmark milestone of 3 million cardholders. The 2nd largest Card issuer in India, SBI Card is unique as the only Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) issuing credit cards in India.

MediaPost's Judy Warner looks at the holiday promotions this season being run by American Express, MasterCard, and Visa. According to Warner, "the common thrust of the charge card companies is to encourage repeat card usage through value-added incentives such as points, rewards, special offers, and contests."

• Wells Fargo HSBC Trade Bank Launches Global Payables Service
• West Coast Bank Adds a Payroll Card Program to its Payment Solutions Product Line
• Zions Bank Offers Customers Local and National Access to Surcharge-Free ATMs
• Xign Total Invoice Management(TM) Eliminates Handling of Paper Invoices and Expands Early Payment Discount Potential
• SafeBoot Declared BITS-Tested to Meet the Mobile Data Security Needs of the Financial Services Industry
• Schools Financial Credit Union Employs Cyveillance Online Risk Monitoring and Management Solution Against Online Fraud
• New RSA® Adaptive Authentication for Phone Provides Financial Institutions with Cross-Channel Customer Protection
• Armorpoint Unveils First On-Demand Identity Theft Management Solution to Deliver Unprecedented Levels of Consumer ID Security and Protection
• Sybase Financial Fusion Delivers Consumer Banking Platform 6.0
• VingCard introduces Signature RFID and NFC cell phones applications
• Certicom Collaborates with Texas Instruments for RFID Authentication and Encryption
• CommercialWare and AmbironTrustWave Partner to Deliver PCI Compliance to Customers
• Joie de Vivre Hospitality Selects MICROS OPERA as Corporate Standard
• S1 and IBM offer Banks Innovative 'Branch in a Box'
• New York Times: New Bankruptcy Law - Lost in the Fine Print, Protection for Tithing
• Bankrate.com: Cancel a card, hurt your credit score
• BBC: First Data International to open contact centre in Glasgow's International Financial Services District
• New York Times: Identity Thief Is Often Found in Family Photo