The Clearing House Payments Company (TCH) and the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) have
announced a joint initiative to help the financial services industry identify ways to facilitate mobile payments for consumers and businesses.

Bankrate.com has announced results from its 2007 Check Card Study - examining the top five banks' and top five thrifts' check card programs in the top 10 U.S. markets. According to Bankrate, "the survey finds that transaction fees have almost vanished, zero-liability fraud protection is increasing, and new rewards programs are helping to drive check card usage across all age and income demographics.

Zhang Fengming reports for the Shanghai Daily about China Unionpay and First Data International's agreement to collaborate to expand acceptance of Unionpay cards in ten markets outside of China. "Under the agreement, First Data will accept UnionPay cards in certain global markets at automatic teller machine locations and merchant point-of-sale locations using First Data systems. First Data will also provide payment processing and transaction routing services to UnionPay."

Back Office Conversion (BOC), the newest form of check conversion, becomes available in the marketplace on Friday, March 16, 2007 with the effective date of NACHA's rules. BOC will allow retailers and billers that accept checks at the point-of-sale or at manned bill payment locations to convert eligible checks to ACH debits in the back-office.

• MasterCard Launches New Interactive Platform at priceless.com for 'Obsessive Golfers'
• WestLB AG and ClickandBuy Simplify European Payments
• Reuters: US House Panel Plans Hearing on Retailers' Banks
• EDS' Eight Financial Services Security Concerns: Banking on Minimal Breaches
• IP Commerce Introduces IPPF™ Secure Payments SDK with Support for Windows Vista™ Operating System
• BSG Clearing Solutions Launches Bill2Phone™, Revenue Optimization for Digital Content Merchants