The latest Federal Reserve G.19 summary of consumer credit for the month of October is now available - showing a 4.1 percent annualized increase in revolving credit - to a total of $863.4 billion. Non-revolving debt declined at a 3.3 percent rate.

MasterCard has posted on its web site its intra-European fallback POS interchange fees along with the three main cost components (payment guarantee costs, free funding costs, and processing costs) used in its consumer cards cost study.

Dave Birch writes on the Digital Money Forum blog about Hong Kong's Octopus scheme - based upon a presentation given by Brian Chambers at a conference in Munich today. Dave links to Wikipedia which has a great summary overview article of Octopus.

Bloomberg reports that MasterCard has won the right to sponsor the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament in a court decision today. Earlier, Visa had announced it had won the sponsorship rights - prompting MasterCard to file a lawsuit.

Visa has announced a "new set of test requirements to help card manufacturers ensure that emerging card technologies, such as battery powered cards and display cards, meet Visa standards for security, safety and interoperability."

eMarketer reports on Cyber Monday, November 27, which - according to data from comScore Networks - was the biggest ecommerce retail day in history at $608 million, up 26% compared to last year.

GMAC Mortgage has announced the results of a national survey that concludes that, while over 50 percent of respondents in a recent national survey of American consumers reported having at least one or two rewards credit cards, more than 41 percent of these reward cardholders either rarely or never even bother to use their rewards. The results also indicate that traditional rewards programs, such as airline miles, are losing steam as only 13 percent of all respondents in the survey ranked airline miles as valuable.

Ylan Q. Mui writes for the Washington Post about retailer card-based loyalty programs. According to Mui, "the cards encourage shoppers to spend more, allow the stores to avoid fees from other credit card companies and offer the retailers insight into their customers' buying habits."

InComm has announced that it now offers "technical solutions that enable retail customers to order and manage postpaid services, including wireless, broadband or television. Merchants and their customers can leverage InComm technology to sign up for postpaid services, pay their monthly services bills and do many other things at convenient retail locations such as grocery stores or big box retailers."

MasterCard Canada has announced that Chase Paymentech Solutions has become the first acquirer in Canada to receive approval from MasterCard to process chip transactions. According to MasterCard, "Chase Paymentech's approval sets the stage for the introduction of MasterCard chip cards in 2007."

Pay By Touch has announced that it has acquired S&H Solutions (S&H) and its parent company S&H greenpoints for a purchase price that was "in excess of $100 million in cash and stock." Pay By Touch sais the acquisition was "in keeping with its corporate strategy to acquire companies that complement its portfolio and provide
future growth opportunities."

• Computerworld: Financial services firms share security tactics
• SVPCO Image Payments Network Surpasses 100 Million Monthly Images for First Time
• Creating a European Leader in Payment Services: Atos Origin Acquisition of Banksys and BCC Completed
• Meta Payment Systems(R) Announces Partnership With Young America Corporation
• Euronet Worldwide Announces Senior Management Changes and Additions
• NACHA on the move: Effective December 18, 2006, NACHA will have a new address
• Digital River Launches E-Commerce Operations for eEye Digital Security
• MICROS Systems, Inc. Acquires the Assets of TangentPOS
• RemoteDepositCapture.com Announces Remote Deposit Capture Webinar Roundtable Featuring Alogent, Metavante and NetDeposit
• RFID Journal: Visa Gives Its Contactless Payment Card Program a Global Push
• GuardID and Equifax to Co-Promote Consumer Solutions for Two-Factor Authentication and Identity Theft Protection