Tomorrow is our favorite holiday of the year - Thanksgiving Day - here in the US. We've got a lot to be thankful for this year. Our best wishes to you for a wonderful holiday with your family and loved ones.

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "A True Test For Contactless Payments: The Market For Open-Network Transit Solutions" that "identifies the potential market size for transit payments in the US and looks internationally at the deployment of closed loop contactless cards. The report explores the potential market across different modes of transportation and the benefits of integrating open payment solutions into presently closed loop transit payment systems. The report considers the challenges to integrating closed transit systems."

PodTech has posted a great LunchMeet video interviewing Jason Knight and Marc Hedlund, the two founders of Berkeley, CA-based Wesabe, a new web site focused on personal financial management. A core idea behind Wesabe is the great notion that where you spend money represents an implicit recommendation by you of a merchant - sort of like how Google interprets links to a web site as representing a recommendation of that web site. The video includes a demo that shows how Wesabe works to bring together recommendations and experiences to help you better manage your money. Think of Quicken enhanced with the spending experiences of lots of your neighbors. What might be even more interesting would be to get below the level of the "purchase at a merchant" data itself - into the shopping cart and then mining that data for product specific recommendations.

James Van Dyke of Javelin Strategy and Research blogs about his hectic week on the road last week - and about the launch of a new "all-purpose template for developing payments strategies". Javelin subscribers can request a copy of the template and the banker’s payments strategy slide deck.

Sarah Scalet reports for CSO Magazine about the steps banks are taking to implement stronger authentication in response to FFIEC guidelines for year-end compliance. Included in the article is a useful chart - titled "Beyond the PIN" - of many of the stronger authentication techniques.

Coinstar has announced that its subsidiary Coinstar Limited has signed U.K. retailer WHSmith to its Gift Card Mall program - the first major retailer in the United Kingdom to deliver a Gift Card Mall program.

The FDIC has just published its latest Quarterly Banking Profile with lots of statistics on the overall health of the US banking system.

Matt Kranz, USA Today's financial markets reporter, compares the stocks of American Express vs. MasterCard (which closed over $100 yesterday!). Bottom line: he's concerned about MasterCard's current PE ratio and its limited history as a public company.

Jaikumar Vijayan writes for Computerworld that some industry experts are recommending that financial institutions do more than just comply with the FFIEC guideliness regarding stronger authentication of online banking customers.

comScore Networks has released the first in a series of reports that measure consumers' online non-travel (retail) spending during the 2006 holiday season, which began November 1, 2006. During the first 19 days of November this year, total online retail spending reached $6.35 billion, marking a 23-percent increase versus the corresponding days in 2005.

Retailers and charities aren't the only ones expecting to benefit from the upcoming holiday shopping season.
With the average shopper expected to spend nearly $800 this year on holiday merchandise, according to the National Retail Federation, thieves are also looking to cash in on the season. Besides stealing money and objects, identity theft is gaining popularity among criminals.

ADT reports that the holidays mean more shopping, and more shopping means more concerns for retailers about shoplifting. This year, retailers have added reason for concern -- for the first time in four years the rate of retail loss has increased, according to a new University of Florida retail study.