Although consumer understanding of credit scores has improved over the past year, it remains poor, according to the latest credit score survey commissioned by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu). Less than one-third of Americans (31%), for example, understand that credit scores indicate risk of not repaying a loan, rather than factors like knowledge of, or attitude toward, consumer credit.

In a press release, Consumers Union applauded "the government’s effort to protect consumers from unfair credit card practices and calls for quick adoption of the proposed credit card rules in comments submitted to the Federal Reserve Board about regulations proposed by the Fed along with the Office of Thrift Supervision, and National Credit Union Administration." READ MORE »

comScore has released a report on the Canadian online banking sector showing that Canada is one of the world's most developed markets for online banking. "Canadians are typically very savvy Internet users, a fact that is underscored by their heavy usage of online banking," said Brent Bernie, president of comScore Media Metrix, comScore Canada. "But because the Canadian online banking sector is so developed and competition already so fierce, banks need to closely examine how they are meeting the needs of their consumers online if they are to achieve customer growth and retention through this increasingly important channel." READ MORE »

On his NetBanker blog, Jim Bruene writes about today's Apple iPhone 3 G launch - and that only Bank of America and PayPal have iPhone applications available for downloading from Apple's new App Store. Apple has made it easy for third-party developers to write and distribute new applications for the iPhone via the App Store. The App Store has a separate category for Finance-related applications for the new iPhone 3G.

Separately, comScore M:Metrics reports that iPhone users surpass all others in terms of their mobile media usage.

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