Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg is at the annual Electronic Transactions Association's Annual Meeting & Expo being held this week in Las Vegas. Allen filed the following report from the Expo.

eBay reported first quarter 2007 financial results today - saying that "PayPal had a excellent quarter, with robust Total Payment Volume (TPV) growth, driven by increased eBay penetration around the world and another outstanding performance from its Merchant Services business."

JPMorgan Chase Bank and Xign Corporation have announced that "they have signed an Agreement and Plan of Merger whereby Xign, a leading provider of business-to-business on-demand financial settlement solutions, will be acquired and combined with the Commercial Card and Procurement businesses of JPMorgan Chase’s Treasury Services unit. Under the Agreement and Plan of Merger, JPMorgan Chase will acquire all of the capital stock of Xign, as well as the company’s technology, services and Order-to-Pay domain expertise. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007, subject to regulatory approval. Terms have not been disclosed."

The Merchants Payments Coalition says that "increases in credit card interchange rates announced by Visa last week average only 0.6 percent, but the $36 billion in total interchange fees consumers paid in 2006 will probably increase close to 20 percent this year" because of the movement of cardholders to premium credit cards that have higher interchange fees associated with them.

Infonox has announced a partnership with PayMate, a mobile-commerce solutions provider in India, to develop a suite of mobile payment products for the US market. According to the company, "the existing businesses on Infonox platform, which include major merchant acquirers, financial service aggregators and banks, will have the instant ability to offer their branded transaction services on cell phones."

Welcome Real-time founder and chairman Aneace Haddad blogs about the contactless card launch in London - now about six months away. He asks why merchants aren't announcing their plans to accept contactless card payments - concluding that, for merchants, the contactless "benefits are [far] from irresistible"

Visa Money Transfer, Visa’s card-to-card payment service, has been launched by Visa International and Maybank in Singapore. Visa's Money Transfer service allows customers to send funds from their Visa cards to other Visa cardholders around the world.

Discover Financial Services has announced the launch a new Discover Business Miles Card, which the company says "gives small business owners a way to earn miles faster and the ability to travel with no restrictions. Discover Card is introducing the new Business Miles Card following last year’s successful debut of Discover Business Card as another way to provide more flexibility and control to America’s small business owners."

Endpoint Exchange LLC, a Metavante company, and SVPCO – Electronic Clearing Services, the electronic check and check image exchange business of The Clearing House Payments Company LLC, have announced that member financial institutions of both systems can now exchange check data and images.

Gemalto has announced that it is providing Barclays Bank with a tailor-made product supporting Barclays project to offer stronger authentication for online banking customers. According to the company, its solution "includes the authentication devices and a full service encompassing design of the readers, fulfillment and distribution to the Barclays customer. In addition, Gemalto produced a unique looking device, customised with the bank’s visual corporate identity. The contract calls for the delivery of over half a million units by the end of this year and includes options for additional deliveries into 2008." More information, including photos of the device, are available at the Barclays web site.

AuctionBytes Ina Steiner takes a deeper look at yesterday's launch by Yahoo! of Yahoo! PayPal Checkout - noting that merchants are being offered free processing through 12/31/2007 along with $100 to spend on Yahoo! advertising if they sign up for the program.

Tash Shifrin reports for Computerworld UK that "Barclays bank is sending out handheld chip and PIN card readers to more than half a million online banking customers in a bid to prevent fraud."

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Marc Edmondson has been named Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, for Chockstone. Prior to joining Chockstone in 2005, Edmondson served as Vice President and General Manager for First Consumer’s National Bank, where he directed the consumer marketing organization and was responsible for product and business development, strategic planning and portfolio acquisitions.

• First Tennessee Bank Selects CheckFree's PEP(R)+ reACH/BOC Solution to Streamline Check Conversion
• Wachovia Deploys SuccessFactors Performance and Talent Management Suite
• EarthLink and RSA Enhance Relationship to Protect Consumers From Phishing
• Hypercom Introduces SmartPayments Client for PC-Based Merchant Payment Processing
• VeriFone Signs Leading Nigerian Payments Company InterSwitch