Our good friend and payments-saavy attorney Broox Peterson has written a short piece titled "Protecting Your Intellectual Property From Your Strategic Alliance Partner" .

From Broox's introduction: "There are intellectual property tensions that exist in every alliance relationship that you must address even before contract negotiations in order to avoid nasty surprises later. Every business has intellectual property of some sort - patents, patentable inventions, copyrights, or at least trade secret know-how or information. Unless your intent is to contribute your intellectual property to a joint venture or alliance partner, you need to take special care to keep ownership of your intellectual property employed during execution of the objectives of the alliance in your hands, exclusively."

American Express has reported second quarter 2008 financial results - with revenue up 8% but income from continuing operations down 37% vs. the same period last year. Amex revised downward its prior forecast of 4-6% earnings growth - saying "that outlook was based on business and economic conditions in line with, or moderately worse than, January 2008. The environment has weakened significantly since then, particularly during the month of June." The average merchant discount rate declined slightly from 2.57% to 2.56%.

Navy Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in the world and the 22nd largest receiving financial institution of ACH payments in the nation, has announced it has joined NACHA—The Electronic Payments Association. READ MORE »

MasterCard Worldwide has announced the integration of its MasterCard Payment Gateway with iPayables’ electronic invoice delivery capabilities to provide expanded payment solutions to corporations and financial institutions. According to MasterCard, "the combined offering provides a complete procure-to-pay solution that supports settlement using a MasterCard payment card account or electronic funds transfer (EFT)." READ MORE »

On his Bankervision blog, James Gardner writes about his opinion that "so many senior people in banks start to take the discipline of innovation seriously." He goes on: "I am beginning to wonder if the day when disruption can only come from outside are almost over."

In a post titled Slightly Faster Payments, Dave Birch blogs about the recently launched Faster Payment Service (FPS) in the UK - noting that "if it is simple -- and I mean really simply -- to instruct an FPS transfer from the phone then it may become an established alternative to some other payment mechanisms." But the best part of the post is his comparison of three possible approaches to settling up lunch with a friend - using FPS, using PayPal, or using the M-PESA approach now live in Kenya.

Michael Simkovic, a former James M. Olin fellow in Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, has published a paper titled "The Effect of 2005 Bankruptcy Reforms on Credit Card Industry Profits and Prices" . His conclusion: "the 2005 bankruptcy reforms profited credit card companies at consumers' expense." READ MORE »

ANZ and Visa have announced the launch of the first reloadable, prepaid contactless card in Australia. The new ANZ Stadium Visa payWave card will be launched at ANZ Stadium in Sydney where it will be offered initially to 2,000 ANZ Stadium members for use during the Bledisloe Cup on 26 July. READ MORE »

• AP via Forbes.com: Dutch Court: NXP's smart card code can be released
• Seattle 911 Blog: Puyallup gas station customers scammed in debit card fraud
• CNN (AP): What you risk by using debit card at the pump
• Trumpet Mobile Prepaid Mobile Phone Service Now Available at Walgreens Stores Nationwide
• Convenience Store News: Visa Exec. Explains Stance on Credit Card Bill
• GSI Commerce Platform Used to Launch iRobot's European Direct-to-Consumer Business; Web Stores Launched in U.K. and Germany
• Global Payments and The CashLINQ Group Renew Payment Processing Services Agreement
• Fiserv Delivers New Customer Value Enhancement Products for Financial Services
• Tyfone Invited by the Federal Trade Commission to Discuss a New and Better Paradigm for Contactless Payment Systems
• Equifax and National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange Extend Agreement Through 2015
• Claim Jumper Restaurants Selects VeriFone’s CarsidePAY and TablePAY