Jim Bruene has announced the final starting lineup of 40 financial technology startups for the upcoming FinovateStartup conference to be held on April 29 in San Francisco. If you register by Monday, March 31, you can save $100. We'll be attending FinovateStartup ourselves and look forward to seeing you there!

In an article titled 'Fiserv Is Largely Immune To Banking's Plagues', Jack Willoughby writes for Barron's this weekend that Fiserv may be among the 'companies whose earnings are likely to rise this year.'

In an article titled 'Advanced tactic targeted grocer', Ross Kerber writes for the Boston Globe about how the data breach disclosed earlier this month by Hannaford Bros. Co. actually occurred. In a letter to Massachusetts officials, the company reported that malware had been installed on servers in each of its 300 stores. "The malware intercepted the "track 2" data stored on the magnetic stripe of payment cards as customers used them at the checkout counter." Hannaford had been certified as PCI compliant in late February. In 2005, Hannaford was featured for its migration to a Linux-based in-store POS environment.

The Wall St. Journal has an editorial this morning about the Credit Card Fair Fee Act introduced by House Democrat John Conyers of Michigan and Republican Chris Cannon of Utah. 'The Conyers-Cannon bill requires that any credit card company with more than 20% of the credit and debit market -- Visa has about 50% and MasterCard 25% -- negotiate for 90 days with a coalition of retailers on a mutually acceptable fee. (The retailers would gain an antitrust exemption for these deliberations.) If the parties can't agree, a three-person panel of "electronic payment judges" will "determine rates and terms" which shall be binding. That sounds like a price-control regime.'

Separately, today's New York Times editorial page had an editorial titled 'Plastic Card Tricks' saying that 'Washington needs to change the way these companies [credit card issuers] do business to ensure that consumers are treated fairly.' Further: 'Congress needs to address numerous unfair practices, including interest rates that skyrocket for no apparent reason and due dates that suddenly shift — forward — so that an unwary consumer pays late.'