Aite Group has announced a new report, Biometric Payments and Rewards: A Case Study, that provides an "in-depth review of the deployment of Pay By Touch technology at a grocery store named Green Hills." According to the report, "nine months after the introduction of Pay By Touch's SmartShop loyalty and payment solution, 25% of Green Hills' sales are made via biometric payments, and 28% of those are processed over the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network."

Obopay has announced that it is entering the Indian market for mobile payments and has appointed Aditya Menon as chief information and technology officer for India "as part of an international expansion to bring mobile payments to banks, carriers and consumers all over the world."

Wells Fargo has announced that, starting this week, its customers in Central California can deposit cash and checks directly into ATMs without an envelope. Wells Fargo, which already has 400 Envelope-Free WebATM machines in Northern California, announced plans to add 825 more of the new machines by the end of the year.

In yesterday's investor conference call talking points (PDF), American Express CFO Gary Crittenden briefly discussed the average merchant discount rate - which remained flat year over year at 2.55% - with the additional comment that while the longer term trend on the discount rate is negative due to repricing and mix changes among various merchant categories, "the rate has been buoyed more recently by the fact that in some merchant segments, repricing activities have had a positive effect in recognition of the substantial value we bring to those merchants."

DataTreasury Corporation has announced a worldwide licensing agreement with Diebold for the use of four of the company's financial transaction patents relating to "technologies involved in the electronic processing of checks and other financial instruments and include claims related to the capture, transmission, encryption, storing and retrieval of electronic images generated from these types of documents."

Dave Birch blogs about recent news reports about gift cards and crime - concluding "gift cards don't rob people, people rob people."

Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan recently described how the OCC assists national bank customers with questions and complaints during a speech to banking and finance professionals and consumer advocates.

Moneris Solutions has announced a new partnership with Recreation Sports Management, the creators of www.esportsdeskpro.com, to offer Web-based payments and other services to the company’s athletic leagues, organizations and team clients.

Sapphire Mobile Systems has announced the live version of its Phire mobile banking and payments network which the company says is currently in trials at two major US financial institutions. The service gives banks and prepaid debit card issuers the ability to provide their customers with instant access to their accounts using the Short Message Service (SMS) - allowing consumers to check balances, transfer money between accounts and pay bills through their bank's existing bill pay system.

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Scott Powell has been named CEO of Consumer Banking at Chase.
• Leslie Mitchell has been named Director, Network Risk Policy, for NACHA, where she will be responsible for managing the development and deployment of risk management tools and policies for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network. Prior to joining NACHA, Leslie was Manager, Operational Risk-Key Risk Indicator & Benchmarking Services with the Risk Management Association. She also served six years with BITS and the Financial Services Roundtable as a Senior Director.

TrustedID has announced what it calls "the first-ever free global service that allows consumers to check a secure database to find out if their personal information has been stolen or compromised." The new service -- StolenID Search -- is powered by "the world’s largest aggregation of stolen and compromised data and contains more than 2 million pieces of information."

• NCR Secures Significant ATM Orders Totaling Over 5,600 Units from Top Four Chinese Commercial Banks in 2006
• ACH Direct Adds First Data Credit Card Processing To Its Portfolio Of Payments Solutions
• eCashflow Systems Partners With NACS to Offer Electronic NSF Check Collection Services
• Greenlight Financial Services Launches Green Loan Discount
• How PayPal Will Fight Phishing and Password Cracking
• AP: New Bankruptcy Law Aids American Express
• Russian Post Selects VeriFone SC 5000 Payment System