Stephanie Rosenbloom reports for the New York Times on today's dismal reports from major retailers on their October sales.

She writes: "Sales at the nation’s largest retailers fell off a cliff in October, casting fresh doubt on the survival of some chains and signaling that this will likely be the weakest Christmas shopping season in decades."

ID Analytics has introduced ID Analytics Credit Optics, a supplemental credit score that the company says "delivers a new dimension to the assessment of the creditworthiness of individuals. ID Analytics Credit Optics improves credit decisions by gleaning insight from information that is not typically included when calculating a traditional credit score. Organizations can immediately reduce losses by combining traditional credit scores with ID Analytics Credit Optics to fine tune credit decision processes." READ MORE »

Discover has announced that its "Discover U.S. Spending Monitor fell a record six points in October to 80.4 (based off of 100), as consumers’ economic confidence reached record lows and views of their personal finances deteriorated." READ MORE »

In an article titled "Bond Woes Choke Off Some Credit to Consumers", Robin Sidel and Prabha Natarajan write for the Wall St. Journal about how the asset securitization credit market - including that for credit card debt - remains at a standstill.

In an article titled "Small-Business Owners Lobby to Cut Credit Card Fees", Jane Birnbaum writes for the New York Times about concerns among smaller merchants over payment card interchange fees.

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