The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City last week hosted "Nonbanks in the Payments System: Innovation, Competition, and Risk," May 2-4 in Santa Fe, N.M. This conference brought together three principal audiences -- industry participants, academics, and public authorities -- for an exchange of views and thoughts around the topic of nonbanks' increasing prominence in payments systems around the world. Preliminary copies of the papers presented at this conference are available online.

SourceMedia's Cards&Payments' annual Bankcard Profitability Study and Annual Report has been released - concluding that U.S. issuers of Visa and MasterCard credit cards in 2006 experienced a big reduction in charge-off expenses that helped boost bankcard issuers' profits to a collective after-tax return on assets of $18.37 billion, or 2.97% of average outstandings, up 45% from $12.67 billion and 2.09% in 2005.   » Continue Reading

The PELORUS Group has announced "M-Payments & M-Banking: The Rise of Mobile Financial Services" being held June 27 & 28, 2007 at Caesars Atlantic City. "Dedicated to defining the sweeping changes that will be triggered as mobile financial services take hold, the event will focus on why mobile payments and banking services will become entrenched so quickly, and what banks, retailers, credit card issuers and other vested concerns should be doing to prepare for - and indeed capitalize on - the phenomenon."   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. filed a 10-Q quarterly report yesterday with the SEC that includes some information about its plans for data center consolidation scheduled over the next two and a half years.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide has announced a 15.2% increase in gross dollar volume (GDV) for Europe in the first quarter of 2007 to $141 billion . The rise in GDV was accompanied by a 15.9% rise in European purchase volume to $104 billion, driven by increasing cardholder spending on a growing number of MasterCard cards.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide has announced the launch of Europe’s first watch equipped with MasterCard PayPass contactless technology, in partnership with Garanti Bank in Turkey.   » Continue Reading

Gemalto has announced it is the "first company to achieve the MasterCard and Visa Chip Authentication Program (CAP) 2007 certification of its Pocket reader, designed to secure authentication of cardholders for remote banking and e-commerce."   » Continue Reading

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