Charles T. Russell, former CEO of Visa International, died on Labor Day in a tragic motorcycle accident in northern California. Russell was CEO of Visa International from 1984 to his retirement in 1994. He was 78 years old.

Several of us at Glenbrook worked with Chuck at Visa and have many fond memories of his leadership during those years. He frequently commuted to work by air - piloting his own plane over San Francisco Bay - and loved his Harley-Davidsons. Chuck was a truly gifted leader for Visa - he had just the right touch. We miss him - and our sincere condolences go out to his family.

Billing Revolution, a Seattle-based mobile commerce company, has announced “single-click” - calling it "a mobile billing and payments service designed to make it easy once and for all for retailers to sell products to on-the-go consumers without sacrificing high profits to mobile operators." READ MORE »

ACI Gift Cards, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, has announced the launch of Amazon Gift Codes On Demand™ (AGC On Demand), a real-time electronic gift-card distribution option available from the Amazon Corporate Gift Card program. According to the company, "AGC On Demand is a simple Web service API that integrates Amazon’s proprietary gift-card technology directly into customer loyalty, employee incentive and payment disbursement platforms. With AGC On Demand, companies are able to reduce physical gift-card fulfillment overhead while providing gift card recipients with a customized experience and instant gratification. To learn more about AGC On Demand, visit http://amazon.com/corporate-gc." READ MORE »

In an article titled "Airlines Want Cash. Card Firms Stiffen Terms. Who'll Blink?", Robin Sidel and Susan Carey write for the Wall St. Journal about negotiations between US airlines and credit card issuers over negotiations to provide the airlines with more capital.

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