A couple of points reflecting on today's carnage.

First, the Innovest webcast this morning - before the failed vote in Congress - describing their analysis of credit card issuers and forecasting serious issues ahead for those credit card issuers who live for their delinquency oriented business models and exploitation of their cardholders vs. those issuers who are serious about having a repayment business model and work with their customers accordingly.

Second, Thad Peterson's "What Now?" post tonight on his Banking on Customers blog. Thad reminds us that as "A.P. Giannini, the founder of Bank of America said, 'If an institution becomes great, it is usually by the consent of the people it serves.' At this time, in this place, truer words were never spoken."

What do you think? Post a comment!

Last week, RBC Royal Bank announced that it is testing a new service, RBC Mobex Mobile Payment Service, that "allows users to easily and securely send and receive money instantly using a text message on their mobile phone."

RBC is doing several smart things here - announcing a new person-to-person service that's incrementally useful - not the "be all, end all" mobile payments service. They're making it easy to participate and doing some smart adaptive risk management too. The technology for the new service is being provided by paybox, a German mobile payments solutions company. Read on for details. READ MORE

John Partridge writes for the Globe and Mail about a forecast by analysts at the research firm Innovest Strategic Advisors about credit card charge-offs ahead. Here's a link to the webcast on this subject on the Innovest web site.

Blackhawk Network has announced an "exclusive relationship with Staples, Inc., the world's largest office products company. Staples’ U.S. stores will now carry Blackhawk’s signature Gift Card Mall™ currently found in grocery stores such as Safeway. Blackhawk’s Gift Card Mall™ features over 300 of the best branded gift cards across a number of different categories including fashion, tickets, electronics, home and sports." READ MORE

Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group has announced results of a survey finding that "important consumer segments such as baby boomers trust online payment providers more than they trust traditional banks." READ MORE

Discover Financial Services has announced that its Discover Small Business Watch fell to 74.6 in September, down 12.3 points from August. "Economic confidence among small business owners declined sharply in September amid rising concerns about economic conditions for their businesses and a bleak vision of where the economy is headed."

Firethorn Holdings has announced that "it has entered into an agreement with Fifth Third Processing Solutions to bring mobile banking services to its 2,880 financial institutions. As part of the relationship, Fifth Third Processing Solutions will offer Firethorn's products to its processing financial institution clients, leveraging existing integration and connectivity to deploy Firethorn's mobile application. Fifth Third Processing Solutions plans to make the service available to its financial institutions before the end of the year." READ MORE

The FDIC has announced that "Citigroup Inc. will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia Corporation; Charlotte, North Carolina, in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and concurred with by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the President."

• paybox Brings Mobile Payment Technology to Canada
• Javelin Webinar: 2008 Expedited Payments Forecast (Oct 7, 2008 - 10-11 AM Pacific)
• New Report From Aite Group: Using Card-Based Bill Pay to Attract Engaged Consumers
• Forrester Research: Consumers Show Little Interest In Person-To-Person Lending by Brad Strothkamp
• Forte Financial Blog: The 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking 2008
• BioPay Enrolled Consumer Base Passes 5-Million Mark
• GEICO Credit Union Successfully Implements US Biometrics' AccessQ - Biometric Access Control System
• The Bancorp Bank Partners with LeagueSafe to Offer Financial Tools to Fantasy Football Leagues
• Kiplinger.com: Card Issuers Tighten The Screws
• CashEdge Deploys GoldenGate Software's Live Standby Solution for High Availability and Disaster Tolerance
• Billeo is the First Online Payments Application to Earn TRUSTe Certification
• VeriFone Puts Vx Solutions into Unattended Payment Environments