Karen Webster writes for the Catalyst Code blog about her view of mobile payments - which could be summarized as something like "too much buzz, not enough tough-minded thinking." She suspects industry analysts are just being too optimistic.

Instead, Webster argues: "Getting merchants and customers to adopt something new when, by and large, their experience today at the physical point of sale is pretty darn good, takes a whole lot more than just saying it is so or having technology that can enable neat new things."

Yesterday, we mentioned we were building a new page on Payments News with RSS feeds from payments and banking-related blogs. We had a number of responses from bloggers today and have updated the page to reflect those responses.

Are there any more blogs we should add - please let us know!

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency late last week issued new risk management guidance to banks on the subject of payment processors. The OCC said that 'certain merchants, such as telemarketers, pose a higher risk than other merchants and require additional due diligence and close monitoring.' READ MORE »

Visa Inc. has reported financial results for its second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2008. Net operating revenue was $1.5 billion with Visa's payments volume growing 19% year over year to $681 billion. READ MORE »

Bill Me Later has announced that Journeys.com, a specialty retailer of footwear and accessories, has launched Bill Me Later on its web site. With the Bill Me Later payment service, consumers can conveniently and securely make online purchases without a credit card. Journeys.com is also extending the additional convenience and flexibility of no payments for 90 days to its customers. READ MORE »

In his article titled 'Mobiles begin calling the shots on banking and payments', Trevor Lloyd-Jones writes for Business Intelligence Middle East about mobile payments efforts in many countries around the world and interviews Mi-Pay's CTO Simon Cavil. 'The use of mobiles for banking and payments is transforming lives and economies, especially in the unbanked and rural areas of many countries without branches and other traditional banking channels, such as ATMs, fixed line telephones and the Internet.' Some fascinating reading! Dave Birch did a podcast interview with Simon Cavil a year ago.

First Data Corp. has announced an agreement to acquire InComm, a marketer, distributor and technology innovator of stored value gift and prepaid products. Specific terms and conditions of the agreement were not disclosed, but the transaction is expected to be accretive to First Data. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year. READ MORE »

Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness will be attending tomorrow's FinovateStartup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene has pulled together an excellent program where forty financial services startups will "strut their stuff." Christophe Langlois from Visible Banking will be live blogging the event on Jim's NetBanker site. If you're also going to be there, let's get acquainted! We'll be blogging to Payments News as time permits and also commenting from @paymentsnews on Twitter.

Fair Isaac has announced the release of TRIAD adaptive control system version 8.3 providing credit grantors with access to 'improved flexibility and processing capabilities that accelerate the development and implementation of profitable decisions in account and customer management, at both the enterprise and portfolio levels.' Fair Isaac says that 65% of bankcards globally are processed on a Fair Isaac adaptive control system. READ MORE »

The International Payments Framework Group (IPF) has announced its decision to go forward with the next phase of the project. According to IPF, 'Phase II will improve the cross-border payments process through operating rules that will enable interoperability between domestic and international ACH systems.' READ MORE »

Aite Group has published a new report titled 'Usage Trends in Online and Mobile Banking: Upping the Ante' finding that reviews consumer adoption trends for online and mobile banking services over the next two years. READ MORE »

MasterCard will be announcing financial results for the first quarter 2008 tomorrow morning before the markets open. A webcast to discuss the results is scheduled for Tuesday morning, April 29, beginning at 9 AM Easter.

Visa Inc. will be announcing its financial results for the first quarter 2008 later today after the markets close. A conference call has been scheduled for 2 PM Eastern to discuss the results and will be available via webcast.

APACS has confirmed plans for the launch of the new Faster Payments Service on May 27th. Beginning then, the FPS founding banks will be gradually implementing their own plans to deliver the new service to their customers. According to APACS, 'the new service will benefit customers by speeding up one-off payments made over the internet or by phone, reducing the current three-day clearing timescale to enable these payments to clear within hours, not days. For the very first time it will also be possible to make these payments all day every day.' READ MORE »

In an article titled 'Paying breach bill may not buy Hannaford full data protection', Jaikumar Vijayan writes for Computerworld about Hannaford's discussion last week that it is spending millions of dollars on new IT security tools. The grocer last week said it has plans to encrypt all payment card data on its internal network.

A friend of ours over the weekend wondered what the total cost to the industry of PCI compliance will be. Seems like somewhere between $100 million and $1 billion? What do you think? Comments?

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• Bank Systems & Technology: Analytics Are Becoming Increasingly Important Tools in Banks’ Customer Retention Strategies
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• Iowa Banking Law Blog: UK Rules that Overdraft Fees Can be Judged for Fairness
• SaaS Leaders, CORESense and SPS Commerce, Partner to Offer Integrated Supply Chain Solution for Mid-Market Retailers
• Reuters: India's Essar buys stake in mobile payment provider