Avivah Litan from Gartner is out with a new note titled "New PCI Security Standards Council Needs More Power". From the abstract: "The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council's newly elected Board of Advisors will help to improve stakeholder communication. But the advisors need voting power and expanded authority to resolve problems."

Barclaycard in the UK is celebrating the upcoming 10th anniversary of its Connect Card, the UK's first debit card. According to Barclays, "June 3rd, 1987 was the day that Barclays revolutionised the nation’s spending habits by putting the UK’s first debit card, the Barclays Connect card, into the purses and wallets of people up and down the country. The new cards caught on immediately and just nine months after the launch Barclays issued its millionth card."

MasterCard has announced the results of a study titled "Women in the Financial Marketplace" conducted as part of the Yankelovich MONITOR 2006/07 study. The study, commissioned by MasterCard Worldwide, found that debit card usage by women has more than doubled since 2003, growing from 20 percent to 43 percent - with women now representing 61 percent of the most frequent debit card users.

Wachovia has announced that, less than a year since its re-entry into the credit card business, it has reached one million credit card customers in its portfolio.

HSBC Bank USA has announced HSBC Direct’s Online Payment Account, a new Online Payment Account product that offers instant fund transfers to and from the HSBC Direct Online Savings Account (OSA) and pays a current yield of 2.50% APY. According to HSBC, "this account allows customers to leave funds in the high-yield OSA longer, and fluidly manage their money so that they can maximize the value of every dollar, every day. Customers can also earn interest on money in the Online Payment Account used for everyday expenses, and then promptly move anything they do not spend back into high-yield savings, getting the most earning power from both."

Aneace Haddad of Welcome Real-time blogs about a potential unintended consequence of SEPA - that the elimination of national debit card monopolies could lead to a spiraling up of interchange fees as brands compete for issuance by banks. Haddad says "now that banks finally have a choice, it will be irresistible for them to choose the brand that offers the highest interchange. The old European national debit brands have never had to deal with this before."

The Reserve Bank of Australia has a paper titled "Reform of Australia’s Payments System: Issues for the 2007/08 Review" (PDF) that begins the formal process of consultation for the Bank’s review of the payments system reforms of recent years in Australia. According to the RBA, "the paper sets out details on the timing and scope of the review and provides a summary of the reforms and their rationale. The paper also raises a number of specific issues on which the Bank is seeking comment from interested parties." More in this story by Katherine Jimenez in The Australian.

• OpenTable Names Jeff Jordan CEO
• CashEdge and Geezeo Partner to Offer Consumers Consolidated Financial Account Data Through Web 2.0 Applications
• Tata Consultancy Services Launches Strategic Business Unit for Financial Services Products
• Bharosa Reaches 25 Million User Milestone; Launches 4.0 Version of Online Security Software
• Ingrian Networks Releases Customer Video Featuring Dell Focused on Data Privacy
• Baltimore Sun: Con men are back 'washing checks'
• Panini My Vision X(TM) Selected by SunTrust for Remote Check Capture
• Intelligent Results Launches Enhanced Analytics Platform
• VeriSign Board of Directors Elects William A. Roper, Jr. as Chief Executive Officer and Edward A. Mueller as Chairman

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Sam Bellamy has been named Chief Operating Officer of FreedomPay. Bellamy was a senior executive at Ingenico having served in various executive roles including; Chief Information Officer, Vice President, Operations and Information Technology, and Vice President of Product & Technology.