Marshall & Ilsley Corporation has announced it will be splitting Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and Metavante Corporation into independent public companies. "Under an investment agreement with Warburg Pincus, a global private equity investor, Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest $625 million to acquire an equity stake of 25 percent in Metavante Corporation. Marshall & Ilsley Corporation shareholders will own 75 percent of the shares of Metavante Corporation. The plan will be implemented through the spin-off of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and is intended to be tax-free to Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and its shareholders."

Darden Restaurants, owner of the restaurant chains Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Smokey Bones, and Bahama Breeze, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive practices in advertising and selling its gift cards. As part of the settlement, Darden will restore fees that were deducted from consumers’ gift cards and disclose fees or expiration dates in future gift card sales. This is the FTC's second law enforcement action involving allegedly deceptive gift card sales.

Here's an update on Glenbrook's upcoming Payments Boot Camps from partner Carol Coye Benson:

"Our phone is ringing off the hook with people trying to figure out what the payments system impact of FDC's going private might be - just when we're starting to get our head around the role of the card associations as public (or almost public!) institutions. These are the kinds of questions that always get fascinating interactions going at our Payments Boot Camps. We have a few seats left for our New York City payments boot camp on April 24th and 25th and recently opened for registration our next San Francisco Bay Area payments boot camp on May 2nd and 3rd."

Questions? Email Carol directly.

According to a consumer survey commissioned by NACHA's Marketing Management Group, consumers who use direct deposit or direct payment to add to their savings accounts save $90 more per month than those who use another method to save. The survey showed that only 36 percent of respondents use direct deposit or direct payment to save with the majority doing their saving by depositing checks or cash (41%) or by manually transferring money between accounts (13%).

Fifth Third Bank has joined NACHA as a direct financial institution member, becoming the third new NACHA member in 2007. According to the most recent NACHA Top 50 list, Fifth Third is the nation's 18th largest originating financial institution and the 14th largest receiving financial institution of ACH payments.

Dave Birch writes about last week's 10th Digital Money Forum held in London - saying "the central question posed this year was that of the “half life” of cash, presupposing an asymptotic fall in cash usage. Will digital money become the mainstream in the next decade?" Presentations from the Digital Money Forum are now available online.

Yesterday afternoon, First Data Corp. made several filings with the SEC regarding its just announced buyout by KKR. Included were the Agreement and Plan of Merger between FDC and KKR, an internal employee blog posting by David Bailis, President of FDC's Financial Institution Services business unit, and a transcript of an internal Q&A conference call that CEO Ric Duques had with employees.

Janece Zhou of Pacific Epoch reports how quickly the online payment providers in China have flipped from free to fees for their services.

Citibank has introduced Citi Mobile - describing it as "the first mobile banking application from a major U.S. bank that can be quickly downloaded onto cell phones, making mobile banking for Citibank clients as fast and effortless as banking online. A push of a button on your cell phone is all it takes to check your balance, pay bills, transfer funds, find an ATM and more."

• NetSpend Enhances Anytime Alerts With Text Messaging
• NCR Selects Postilion for Transaction Processing
• Acxiom Corporation Acquires Kefta, Will Offer Real-Time, Dynamic Website Personalization
• MasterCard and H&R Block Make it Easier to Pay Your Taxes
• VeriFone Strengthens Partnership With Leading Middle East Acquirer Network International