Aneace Haddad blogs about a recent letter to the editor that we noted here on Payments News - sent by Peter Madigan, Director of the Electronic Payments Coalition.

Intuit and Electronic Clearing House Inc. have announced signing of a definitive agreement for Intuit to acquire ECHO for a total purchase price is approximately $142 million on a fully-diluted basis.

Mary Catherine O'Connor writes for RFID Journal about Discover's plans to launch field tests of an RFID-based payment system by the end of this year.

Citigroup, MasterCard Worldwide, Cingular Wireless and Nokia have announced "a consumer technology trial of Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled mobile phones with MasterCard PayPass contactless payment capability in New York City."

The Consumerist blog takes a look Google Checkout's consumer protection features in an interview with Google's Michael Kirkland discussing how consumers can dispute Google Checkout payments.

The Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Hungry For Adoption: Pay At Table Viewpoint and Wireless Point-Of-Sale Update" examining the market opportunity in the US for handheld wireless point of sale solutions (wPOS).

The new issue of The Visa Quarterly is now available on Visa's web site. Topics in this issue include an interview with Visa International Senior VP Lory Yeakle about the merchant acceptance landscape. Visa also introduces a new web site dedicated to merchants called the Merchant Resource Center.

The Interac Association has announced that debit card fraud at gas stations across Canada has declined by more than 60 per cent over the past year. According to Interac, "the deep decline, representing about $15 million in avoided fraud losses, was largely the result of Project Protect, a joint education initiative spearheaded by Interac Association and law enforcement with support from Payment Card Partners and other industry partners."

mFormation Technologies has announced a strategic alliance (including an investment in mFormation) with Visa International to "advance over-the-air (OTA) solutions for mobile payments."

Citigroup is holding its annual Investor/Analyst Day briefing today. The presentation materials are available online.

ABI Research has published a new research study titled "RFID Contactless Payments" that estimates industry spending on contactless payments hardware and software will reach $870 million by 2011, up from just $260 million in 2006 - a compound annual growth rate of 27%.

Unisys has announced the results of a new survey concluding that "a majority of U.S. consumers fear their personal information and security will be compromised while shopping online or using online banking services this holiday season, resulting in the potential loss of significant revenue for banking and retail institutions." According to the study, concerns about bank card fraud and identity theft are so high among consumers that nearly one in every two consumers polled has ceased using online personal banking services, as well as telephone and Internet-based shopping, if the transaction requires a credit card number

Wells Fargo has announced that it has sold more than 1 million Wells Fargo Visa Gift Cards since the it began offering the product in October 2005 - with a substantial percentage of those sales actually coming from businesses.

MasterCard Worldwide and Ariba have announced an agreement "to enhance payment solutions for companies around the world. Under this agreement, Ariba and MasterCard will connect enhanced transaction data from the MasterCard global data repository with Ariba Supplier Network, resulting in integration of purchasing and corporate card programs available for companies globally."

• Cubis Financial Announces Express Card Program for Delivery of Stored-Value Cards
• MasterCard Worldwide Earns Third Consecutive Processing Platform Availability Award
• VeriFone 2006 Innovation Leadership Awards Honor Best and Brightest in Advancing Payment Technology
• Alliance Data's Canadian Loyalty Business Signs Multi-Year Agreement With Leading Car Rental Brand
• Partnership With GE Money Takes Strategy Management From Experian-Scorex Into China
• UK: Swipe cards for the little things in life