Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson recently returned from the Association of Financial Professionals Conference in Boston - where she explored the relative progress being made in the migration of business to business (B2B) payments from paper checks to electronic payments. She shares her insights in "eB2B at the Tipping Point?" - now available over on the Glenbrook web site.

In an article titled 'Amazon’s Latest Coup: Thinking Small', Chris Dannen writes for FastCompany about Amazon.com's recently introduced Flexible Payments Service offering.

BMO Bank of Montreal has announced it is adding MasterCard PayPass to its Mosaik MasterCard cards. BMO says it is "the first credit card issuer among the big six banks in Canada to integrate "Tap & Go" technology into a credit card..."

ValueVision Media, operator of ShopNBC, has announced that ShopNBC.com has added PayPal as a new payment method for its customers.

Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and Metavante Technologies, Inc. have announced that they have completed the separation of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and Metavante Corporation. As a result of the transaction, Marshall & Ilsley Corporation has separated into two independent publicly-traded companies: new Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and Metavante Technologies, Inc.

RBC and Visa Canada have announced they are teaming up to be "the first in Canada to pilot a mobile payment service that uses cellphones rather than traditional credit cards for making Visa purchases. This Ontario-based pilot is expected to be completed in 2008, and involve multiple phases including in-lab testing, an RBC staff pilot and a consumer trial." A video is available.

IBM has announced "a new program that provides products and services to help customers achieve compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Unlike competitive offerings, the comprehensive program is designed to take companies through the entire PCI compliance process, from assessment to compliance to certification, helping them meet all 12 PCI requirements for safeguarding customer payment card data."

Purepay, a $100 million buyout fund focused on payments, banking and the financial supply chain, has announced that it has acquired a controlling interest in Netvantage, a remittance processing software provider focused in the middle market commercial customer.

PayPal continues to expand its acceptance in the airline segment with today's announcement by AirTran Airways that it has teamed up with PayPal "to provide secure, private transactions for customers booking travel via www.airtran.com."

Deloitte has announced the results of its 22nd Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends - saying that "while many Americans say they intend to spend less during this year's holiday season, spending on gifts is expected to hold steady and the number of gifts consumers plan to give is up compared with 2006. For the fourth straight year, gift cards are expected to be the top gift purchase, with more than two-thirds (69 percent) of consumers surveyed planning to buy them, compared with 66 percent last year. In addition, holiday shoppers are planning to buy even more cards this year: an average of 5.5 cards, compared with the 4.6 cards they planned to buy last year.

Kyocera Wireless and INSIDE Contactless have announced "a global collaboration to integrate INSIDE Contactless’ cutting-edge NFC solution for mobile payments in select prototype Kyocera mobile phones."

Highmark has launched the Healthcare Visa Gift Card - saying "the card provides an easy way for consumers and recipients to cover out-of-pocket expenses related to maintaining personal health and wellness."

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Scott H. Betts has been named President, Chief Executive Officer, and interim Chief Financial Officer at Global Cash Access.

• Shell Provides Consumers Gasoline Industry's First Pay By Touch Technology at the Pump
• CyberSource Announces Completion of Authorize.Net Acquisition
• BS&T: The Disintermediation Threat to Banks Has Become Very Real
• Chief Economist: Slowing Economy Affecting Business Payments
• Forrester: Banks Will Take A "Wait And See" Approach To Yodlee's New EBPP Service
• MasterCard Q3 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
• Open Solutions Canada Launches Gift Card Program for Canadian Small & Medium Merchant Market
• eMarketer: Gift Cards Popular With Givers, Merchants
• Over Fifty Million Consumers to Pay for Every-day Goods and Services via Mobile Phone by 2011, According to Juniper Research
• MasterCard Wants Consumers to Experience "The Joy of Giving" this Holiday Season