Maritz and Welcome Real-time have announced a partnership to launch an new loyalty offering in the United States and Canada that will allow customers to redeem points to make purchases and allow card issuers to deliver personalized offers at the point of sale. READ MORE

Fair Isaac has announced it is releasing its Falcon Fraud Manager 6.0 scoring server to select customers who wish to begin deployment projects ahead of the product’s general availability in the spring of 2009. The new version applies recent advances in fraud analytics and profiling to help financial institutions quickly identify changing fraud patterns and minimize losses. READ MORE

In a press release, ABI Research has announced a new report titled "Mobile Commerce and Payments" concluding that NFC (Near Field Communication), once the leading contender among technologies that could enable mobile payments, "has developed more slowly than anticipated, and will not offer viable large-scale mobile payment solutions for at least six years. In the mean time three existing technologies - SMS, mobile Internet and downloadable mobile applications - have the potential to deliver what NFC (so far) cannot." READ MORE

Delta Air Lines and American Express have announced a multiyear extension of their exclusive Co-brand Credit Card partnerships. As part of the partnership agreement, Delta will receive an immediate $1 billion boost to its liquidity from a purchase of SkyMiles. Delta said it expects to receive an additional $1 billion from contract improvements through 2010.

WesPay (Western Payments Alliance) has announced the launch of its Payments Strategy Series, a collection of white papers that examine industry sound practices in the areas of payment systems, risk management, customer engagement and revenue stabilization. The first paper in the series, “Six Critical Elements of a Comprehensive Risk Management Program” examines the areas that financial institutions should address to reduce their payments systems risk.

Vindicia has announced a new version of its hosted billing solution, CashBox. "Designed for recurring and one-time transactions, Vindicia CashBox enables online merchants to attract and retain customers globally through a variety of services including a built-in tax engine and support for multiple processors, currencies and languages." READ MORE

A recent survey conducted by Unisys finds that "a majority of Americans are comfortable using common biometric technologies for authentication. More than 70 percent of respondents will trust banks and government agencies to ask them for biometric data for identity verification. Additionally, fingerprints nearly tied personal passwords as the primary preferred authentication method, 73 percent to 72 percent, respectively."

Wells Fargo has announced new tools to help consumers save more while reducing what they owe, while also introducing resources to use credit better for a lifetime.

The Wells Fargo Debt Pay Down Solution allows customers to consolidate their monthly payments through a personal loan and help find money to pay off the loan faster. The bank is also offering the Wells Fargo Cash Back Card and the Wells Fargo Cash Back College Card to incent customers to pay down debt by offering cash-back rewards that they can use to reduce credit card or personal loan balances or add to checking or savings. Wells Fargo is also introducing its Smarter Credit center, an online resource center with information about how to establish, rebuild and use credit. READ MORE

• MasterCard(R) Teams with Southwest Airlines and Starwood Hotels to Offer Travelers All-Star Promotions with the NBA
• Mobile Tuesday to Deliver Coupons, Savings via Mobile Phones Every Tuesday for 52 Weeks
• Discover Financial Services Introduces Biodegradable Discover® Card
• New Mercator Advisory Group Report: The Japanese Payment Card Market 2008
• Alibris Offers PayPal to Book, Music, and Movie Shoppers
• India's FutureBazaar Chooses CyberSource to Fight Online Fraud
• Wesabe: The “great” customers are the first to go
• Techtree.com India: Remit2India Now Offers Bill Payment Facility
• Grocery Coupon Usage Spikes to Record High in the United States
• RCR Wireless News: PAY TO PLAY: Mobile billing looks for direction
• Tom Pouliot Joins Litle & Co. as Payments Evangelist
• Aneace's Blog: Mobile tap & go loyalty wallet - market research survey