The Visa International Annual Report (PDF) for fiscal 2006 is now available online.

Google's Martin Omander has written an article titled "Build a .NET App for Google Checkout" for O'Reilly's WindowsDevCenter.com that includes sample code for developers to use to integrate ecommerce web sites with Google Checkout.

eBay and PayPal have announced an expansion of PayPal Buyer Protection, giving buyers up to $2,000 of coverage for qualified transactions on eBay.com - doubling the coverage provided by the existing protection program. AuctionBytes reports that eBay is also eliminating buyer-protection for non-PayPal transactions.

The Visa USA Annual Report (PDF) for fiscal 2006 is now available online.

The PELORUS Group has published a new report titled "Alternative Payments: Changing The Rules" that concludes that "three emerging payment alternatives to the traditional magnetic stripe credit/debit card payments regime, when combined, hold the potential to significantly alter the payment landscape. Contactless credit and debit card payments (sometimes called proximity payments), mobile payments (m-Payments) and biometrically authenticated payments will each levy its own unique impact over the next five years. Together, they could garner over $400 billion in revenue by 2011." [Editor's note: I suspect that's payment volume on those instruments, not revenue.]

TowerGroup has published a new report titled "Check 21 in 2007: The Year of Image Exchange" on bank adoption of Check 21 - predicting that 2007 will be the first year in which monthly check image exchange volumes surpass paper check presentment volumes.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has just published the 2006 update to "A Guide to the ATM and Debit Card Industry" (PDF) by Fumiko Hayashi, Richard J. Sullivan, and Stuart E. Weiner. The authors introduce this update by saying that "the three years since the orginal book was published have been a very dynamic time in the industry with a number of important developments. Some trends and patterns have persisted or accelerated, while others have peaked or reversed. Still others have emerged for the first time. The purpose of this 2006 Update is to document these trends and patterns by updating the data we presented in the original book and to discuss their implications for the current and future state of the industry."

Metavante's LINK2GOV has introduced incometaxpayment.com - a new web site that supports Federal balance-due tax payments for a $2.95 flat fee, no matter the amount, when initiated with a debit card. Debit cards issued on the NYCE, Star or PULSE networks are supported). According to LINK2GOV, "never before has PIN-less debit been a card option for Federal balance-due tax payments; and the $2.95 convenience fee charged at incometaxpayment.com is the only flat-fee option available anywhere. Payments made at incometaxpayment.com are authorized in real time and the payment date is the same date the transaction was successfully completed."

Earlier this month, PurePay, a Columbus, Ohio-based acquirer and operator of payments companies, announced its plans. Dan Primack of PE Hub takes a deeper look at the company based upon a conversation with PurePay co-founder John Cullen.

Jim Bruene writes on his Financial Marketing blog about how Apple's iPhone could spur more mobile banking adoption - and adds his prediction that "within two years one of those buttons on the iPhone will activate contactless card payments via MasterCard, Visa, or American Express." We did a bit of our own speculation yesterday following Steve Jobs' keynote introduction of the new iPhone. On the other hand, given the price of the iPhone and Apple's own estimate that it hopes to take 1 percent mobile phone market share in 2008, the iPhone just isn't going to be a mass market device over the next couple of years.

• Fujitsu Goes Pervasive at NRF 2007
• Mobile Payment Forum Announces New Membership Category
• Leading US Credit Unions Standardize on Proactive Anti-Phishing Protection from Cyveillance
• Deluxe Introduces Calling Service to Help Financial Institutions Reach New Indirect Consumers