In an article titled "Mobile Banking: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back", Chris Costanza writes for Bank Director Magazine about mobile banking and says that "there appear to be as many reasons [for banks to adopt mobile banking] as to stay back."

Amazon Payments has launched both Checkout by Amazon, a complete ecommerce checkout solution including payments, shipping, sales tax, promotions, etc., and Amazon Simple Pay , a set of payment-only products that allows websites to enable their customers to use their Amazon.com payment information for payments. A comparison chart shows the key differences between Checkout by Amazon, Amazon Simple Pay, and Amazon's Flexible Payment Service.

The just passed H.R. 3221 - the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 - includes provisions requiring merchant acquirers and "third party settlement organizations" to provide annual reports to the IRS on the amounts paid to payees in settlement of payment card or third party network transactions. The bill passed the Senate on Saturday and is expected to be signed into law by President Bush shortly.

Rafael Ruffolo of ComputerWorld Canada writes about the migration now underway in Canada to the Chip and PIN environment of chip cards and consumers using PINs on POS terminals instead of signatures on sales receipts.

In an article titled "Are Airline Kiosks Safe?", MSNBC's Bob Sullivan writes in his latest edition of The Red Tape Chronicles about the possible theft of credit card data from airline check-in kiosks at the Toronto Airport.

• Bank Systems & Technology: Experts Foresee Boom in Payment Service Hubs
• W3C Standards Make Mobile Web Experience More Inviting
• Equifax Gives Companies New Advantage for Automating & Improving Business Credit Decisions
• GSI Commerce Remains a Top Choice Among Internet Retailer's Top 500 Online Retailers
• College Preparations Should Include a Talk About Credit Cards
• BMO Spend & Payment Solutions(TM) Expands its Global Reach: Adds Eight New Countries to Growing Global Banking Alliance
• The Merchant Account Blog: What do you really need in a merchant account?
• ChosenSecurity Announces TC ID Store: On-Demand Certificate Management for Small Businesses
• VMware Infrastructure Has Eliminated Unplanned Application Downtime, Strengthens Resiliency for United Bancorp
• Revolutionary Nuance Solution Brings Self-Service Directly to Consumers on Their Mobile Phones
• 36 Million American Adults Now Print Coupons
• SmartMoney Magazine: 10 Things Your Bank Won't Tell You
• Simply Wireless Deploys SMS Messaging Campaigns and Mobile Internet Sites to Drive Customer Acquisition and Retention