Gemalto has announced that over one million Barclays Bank customers in the UK are using its cryptographic smart card reader, called PINsentry by Barclays, to provide stronger authentication for online banking. According to Gemalto, "the bank started deploying its strong authentication program in July 2007 and not one PINsentry online customer has suffered fraud since then. User feedback has proven extremely positive and Barclays observed that customer acceptance was higher than anticipated by 30 percent." READ MORE »

Discover has announced that its "Discover U.S. Spending Monitor fell nearly a point in June to 85.9, as consumers struggled with rising prices for essentials and continued to lose confidence in the nation’s economy. Economic confidence hit a new Monitor low, falling in June to a level that is nearly 30 points lower than a year ago." READ MORE »

Altair Financial Services International has announced that "it will work with MasterCard to deliver the first prepaid card programs in Europe using MasterCard rePower, the MasterCard point-of-sale reload service. The first prepaid programs to benefit from MasterCard rePower loading facility in the UK will be issued by Newcastle Building Society in Spring 2009." READ MORE »

MasterCard Worldwide has announced the availability of three new seminars designed to help merchants protect payment card data and reduce the likelihood of reputational risk and the incidence of fraud. The new seminars are titled "Data Encryption: Understanding Encryption and PCI DSS," "Network Segmentation," and "Maximize Internal Preparations for PCI DSS." READ MORE »

ChargeSmart has announced the launch of a web-based payment service allowing consumers to pay their mortgage, auto and education loans as well as utility bills using a major credit card. READ MORE »

Washington Mutual has announced that it has launched mobile banking capabilities, "delivering account information – anytime, anywhere wireless service is available, providing customers the ability to view real-time account balances, view and search real-time transaction history and locate a nearby branch/ATM." READ MORE »

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