The list of other payments and banking-related blogs we started last week has just about doubled in size over the last couple of days! We've now got over 25 blogs listed - along with widgets displaying the latest RSS feeds from each blog. You can quickly scan the page for stories that might be of interest and then click through to read the full text of each story. Clicking on the blog's name takes you to that blog's home page. Hope you find this useful and that it's helpful introducing you to some new sources of payments insights!

James Gardner blogs on Bankervision about what he heard at a conference yesterday - 'the mobile phone will become a personal server in the immediate future.'

Anita Boomstein, an attorney with Hughes Hubbard & Reed, has published a paper titled 'Identity Theft Prevention Programs: Will Your Company Need to Have One?' . Her paper reminds companies of their obligations under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) to take steps to 'prevent, detect and mitigate the occurences of identity theft.' Compliance becomes mandatory on November 1, 2008.

Unified Network Payment Solutions® (UNPS), a subsidiary of First Data Corp., has announced that it has been certified by MasterCard and Visa to provide chip technology solutions to Canadian merchants. With this certification, UNPS merchants will be able to accept chip cards at the point of sale.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Tracking Your Money Without Paying a Mint', Katherine Boehret writes for the Wall Street Journal about Mint.com, one of the companies presenting at yesterday's Finovate Startup conference in San Francisco. She says 'Mint was created for 20-somethings like me who want to pay more attention to their finances but aren't interested in taking hours each week to do so. This Web site worked ideally for me, and its clean interface integrates Web 2.0 features in a way that makes it a pleasure to use.'

Aite Group has published a new report titled 'Fraud Management Strategies of U.S. Financial Institutions: The Drive Toward Enterprise-Wide'. A new report from Aite Group, LLC examines the fraud management strategy of U.S. financial institutions today, and how it is expected to evolve over the next three years. Based on Aite Group's survey of 13 U.S. banks and credit unions conducted between January and March 2008, the report provides a measurement of fraud components and evaluates fraud management system requirements.   » Continue Reading

Lisa Lerer writes for Politico.com writes about merchant frustrations with increasing payment card interchange fees - and legislation introduced in the US Congress to try to deal with interchange fees. She writes: 'The fight is over interchange fees, a relatively obscure business-to-business charge brought into the spotlight by a two-year lobbying campaign. And it’s an issue the retailers hope will dovetail with renewed congressional scrutiny of other credit card practices involving hidden charges and excessive fees.'

On the flip side, Jeff Jacoby writes an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe titled 'Leave the Plastic Alone' advocating that no legislation is required to manage interchange fees.

• SecureNet Selects Hypercom's HBNet to Speed Payment Transactions at Pittsburgh International Airport
• AuctionBytes: eBay Changes PayPal Echeck Blocking Policy
• Squirrel One POS System Integrates Merchant Link’s TransactionVault
• Survey Indicates Nearly 59% of Consumers Will Not Change Online Shopping Habits In 2008 According to Safe Home Products
• Bank of America Selects SAP
• Experian Study Shows Severely Delinquent Mortgage Accounts Up 15 Percent in One Year
• Euronet’s Transact Subsidiary Signs Prepaid Agreement With Aral AG, Germany’s Largest Operator of Petrol Stations
• Bloomberg: American Express Investors Lower Hurdle for Sale
• New York Times: Citigroup to Sell $3 Billion in Stock
• WaMu replaces its chief risk officer

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Gregory Holmes has been named President, US at Obopay. Holmes previously worked for First Data Corp. and Visa USA.