Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Purchasing Cards, Integrated Procurement Solutions, and the Commercial Card Market" that "examines new levels of sophistication in the domestic commercial credit space with respect to purchasing card programs, and supporting solutions such as Electronic Invoice Presentation and Payment (EIPP).

The American Bankers Association and America’s Community Bankers have announced that their respective boards have approved pursuing a merger with the intention of finalizing it during the fourth quarter of 2007. The new organization will retain the American Bankers Association name. Ed Yingling would remain in his current role as President and CEO of the ABA. Diane Casey-Landry, currently President and CEO of ACB, would become Executive Vice President and COO of the combined entity.

Our thanks to Jim Bruene (of NetBanker and the Online Banking Report) for listing Payments News among his top five banking industry blogs! We also enjoy all of the other banking (and related) blogs he's listed and highly recommend them as well.

McDonald's Restaurants of Canada has announced that it will begin installing "MasterCard's PayPass readers and chip card terminals in some of its 1,400 restaurants across Canada as early as 2008."

Microsoft has announced it is joining with MasterCard Worldwide, FedEx Corporate Services and Bank of America Corp. to provide a comprehensive tool for entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. Microsoft said that enhancements will be made to financial management, payroll solutions and shipping to Microsoft Startup Center, a free online guide that provides step-by-step advice and resources that small-business owners need when they start their business.

Dove Consulting's latest newsletter has an article titled "Open Loop Prepaid: The Jury Is Still Out" by Chris Allen, Senior Manager. In the article, Allen says "despite all the rosy growth projections, the jury is still out on open loop prepaid and a winning strategy has yet to emerge on either the issuer or processor side."

The Direct Response Forum has announced that the 2007 Forum has been approved for up to 13 Certified Treasury Professional/Certified Cash Manager recertification credits by the Association for Financial Professionals. This year’s DRF annual meeting will be held in Seattle from August 5th through 7th.

Regions Financial Corp. and Visa USA have announced a long-term partnership agreement whereby "Regions will continue to offer all Visa consumer debit products to its customers, including Visa check card, Interlink and Plus. In an extension to the previous partnership agreement, Regions will switch all its processing services to Visa USA for all Visa check card, Interlink and Plus transactions. Regions currently issues Visa credit card products and will continue to do so under a separate agreement."

Rick Biggs writes for Bankstocks.com about the upcoming spin-out of Discover Financial Services from parent Morgan Stanley and does some quick analysis regarding how it might be valued.

• OASIS Members Form Committee to Standardize Symmetric Encryption Key Management Across the Enterprise
• Equifax Helps Businesses Thwart Authorized User Deception
• Cyber Criminals Rely On Mind Games To Scam Internet Users
• The Hartford Offers Valuable New Web Class on eSecurity for Businesses
• Survey Results Reveal an Increase in Contactless Payments via New MasterCard Mobile with PayPass
• Datacard Group Announces Relationship with Aconite
• The Golden 1 Credit Union Deploys Arcot Multi-Factor Authentication to Enhance Online Banking Security
• TransUnion Adds Insurance Verification to Its Healthcare Revenue Cycle Platform
• TransUnion Expands Role in India With Strategic Hire
• FINO Adopts Gemalto Smartcards To Accelerate Microbanking Deployment In India
• Experian's Eiger Systems expands into Italian market