Deborah Haynes reports for the London Times from Baghdad about prepaid MasterCards being distributed in Iraq by a Baghdad-based financial services company. "The firm has been providing pay-as-you-go MasterCards since 2004, although business started to pick up only over the past year as the country became more secure."

Saar Drimer, Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson, researchers at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge in the UK, have announced a demonstration showing that "Chip & PIN machines are not as secure as the banking industry claims. Two widely deployed models of PIN Entry Devices (PEDs), the Ingenico i3300 and Dione Xtreme, fail to protect customers' card details and PINs adequately." The BBC also reports on this story.

In an article titled 'Exposing the Credit-Card Fine Print', Anita Hamilton writes for Time about credit card issuer practices regarding interest rate adjustments. Hamllton writes that 'with politicians angry with the bankers over the subprime fiasco, the heat is rising on the industry's credit-card segment.'

On the Credit Slips blog, Adam Levitin examines the legislation recently introduced by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) called the The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights of 2008 (H.R. 5244). Levitin says the proposed legislation "is an important first step to reining in an industry that has run wild in a regulatory no-man’s land of outdated and threadbare federal laws, preempted state laws, and somnolent consumer protection by federal banking regulators. The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights is a major piece of federal consumer protection legislation that will help shield consumers from the worst abuses of the card industry."

Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal about Visa's planned initial public offering - scheduled for the week of March 17. Randall Smith writes for that Wall St. Journal about the fees ($350 million) that Wall St. firms may earn from the Visa IPO. Eric Dash writes about the Visa IPO for the New York Times.

• BBC: How secure is Chip and PIN?
• SmartMoney: Credit-Card Companies Put Tighter Squeeze on Cardholders
• Harris Launches New Card Access for Home Equity Lines of Credit
• TAPCO Credit Union Goes Mobile
• First Data Earns Multi-Year Debit Renewal with Wells Fargo
• WSJ: FDIC to Add Staff as Bank Failures Loom
• India: Mobile banking regulatory framework soon: RBI
• Tangerine Wellness Teams with ECount to Help Employees Cash in on their Weight Loss
• Globe and Mail: Canadian credit card market relatively unscathed

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Jeff McLaughlin has been named Executive Vice President of Mobile Strategy for Monitise Americas. Prior to joining Monitise Americas, McLaughlin held management positions at mFoundry, McCaw Cellular/AT&T Wireless, BCGI, GetConnected and Refresh Mobile.