Yesterday, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) issued a statement regarding yesterday's announcement of Citigroup’s new credit card practices: "“Citigroup’s decision today is a positive step that I would urge other issuers to take. I will continue to consider what steps we in the Congress can and should take to ensure that financial services like credit cards are a more consistent and reliable tool for consumers as they strive to build more secure and prosperous lives in our free market system.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services issued a similar statement today: “Eliminating universal default and unilateral changes in terms and conditions are important steps toward reforming industry pricing policies, and I appreciate Citigroup’s newly announced revisions in credit card practices. I hope other issuers will follow Citigroup to end practices that can be unfair and costly to consumers.”

The U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) has announced that "small business customers of WellsSecure, a business unit of Wells Fargo Bank, will now have access to FAS' premier online proposal submission program -- eOffer -- using WellsSecure digital certificates. This is the latest successful public-private partnership under GSA's E-Authentication Initiative, managed by the U.S. E-Authentication Identity Federation."   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Deep in Debt, Deeper in Denial" on Yahoo! Finance, Laura Rowley writes about credit card debt - soon to be featured in the documentary movie "Maxed Out" that opens nationwide next week.   » Continue Reading

Pay By Touch is looking for a Product Analyst - Payments in San Francisco.

Washington Mutual is looking for Senior Product Managers - Payments in Seattle.

Google is looking for a Strategic Partner Manager for Google Checkout based in Chicago and for a number of Google Checkout positions in Mountain View, California.

PayPal is looking for Software Engineers to work in San Jose, California.

These and more jobs for payments professionals can be found on our job board at Payments Jobs. Looking for the best people? You can have your job opening listed live on Payments Jobs in less than 10 minutes.

Marketwatch reports on Google's disclosure in a regulatory filing that it spent about $58.4 million last year to promote its new Google Checkout payment service. "Google also said it expects to pay more Checkout-related transaction processing fees in 2007." Google's 10-K filing with the SEC is available online.

In a comprehensive article citing much of the recent work by Jim Bruene of the Online Banking Report, Laura Bruce reports for Bankrate.com on the resurgence of interest in mobile banking - saying that "many in the banking industry are saying 2007 is the year when America will start banking by cell phone."

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