The Sun's Financial Diary blog reviews comments and experiences from readers using ING Direct's Electric Orange checking account.

Liz Pulliam Weston writes for MSN Money about some of the worst practices of credit card issuers. The practices that particularly irk her include issuers being mysterious on interest rates on new accounts, reporting issues re: data issuers send to credit bureaus, late fees for payments, outrageous balance transfer and over-limit fees, and issuing multiple cards with low limits to risky borrowers (Capital One particularly).

In an article titled 'TJX cyberfraud spreads: Bank of America reissuing cards", Boston Herald general economics reporter Jay Fitzgerald provides an update on the effects of the TJX data breach - including that "Bank of America said yesterday it’s reissuing credit cards to customers hit with fraudulent charges tied to the cybertheft of data from TJX Cos."

Eric Grover of Intrepid Ventures writes a letter to the editor of the American Banker discussing what he thinks MasterCard and Visa can learn from Wal-Mart's bid to obtain an Industrial Loan Corporation charter. Speaking of the public debate about interchange, Eric writes "In an environment where their critics are mobilized, appeasement won't work. MasterCard and Visa need to relentlessly make an aggressive affirmative case in the public arena, or, like Wal-Mart, they will suffer for it."

First Data International and INICIS Co Ltd have announced a strategic alliance to offer merchant processing services to global, online merchants operating in Korea.   » Continue Reading

Forrester's Catherine Graeber has published a new report titled "EBPP Forecast: 2006 To 2011" that forecasts growth in electronic bill presentment and payment. "In 2005, electronic bill payment and presentment (EBPP) adoption grew by 34%, the highest annual growth rate in four years. Robust adoption growth is expected during the next five years. as the number of EBPP users will grow by 63% to roughly 60 million households."