Payments News had a very busy year in 2008 - serving almost 3 million page views to over 600,000 unique visitors. Over the year, our daily email distribution grew by over 2,000 to 5,400 readers - adding 8 new subscribers on average every business day. Another 2,500 readers follow us daily via our RSS feed. And, several hundred readers have started following Payments News in real-time via our newly launched Payments News Twitter feed. Thanks very much for reading Payments News in 2008 - we're looking forward to an even more exciting 2009!

Looking back over the year, here are the top 11 most viewed individual news stories posted to Payments News this year:

1. Citi Introduces Extra Cash - New Rewards Program (May 29, 2008)
2. Bank of America, Wells Fargo Form Payment Processing Joint Venture (May 15, 2008)
3. Secure Vault Payments - A Bank-Centric Alternative Payment System (August 15, 2008)
4. JPMorgan Chase, First Data To End Chase Paymentech Joint Venture (May 27, 2008)
5. PULSE Releases 2008 US Debit Issuer Study (April 29, 2008)
6. H.R. 5546 - The Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008 (March 07, 2008)
7. Finovate Startup - Best of Show Awards (April 29, 2008)
8. L.L.Bean Chooses Barclays to Launch New L.L.Bean Visa Card (June 30, 2008)
9. Citi to Raise Credit Card Interest Rates (November 15, 2008)
10. PayPal Reports Online Consumer Shopping Trends (March 4, 2008)
11. New Study Finds Declining Credit Card Use in US (July 30, 2008)

The top 11 most viewed categories/tags for 2008 were:

1. Mobile Payments
2. Chase Card Services
3. Prepaid Cards
4. Mobile Banking
5. Citi Cards
6. Money Transfer
7. Contactless Payments
8. Merchant Acquirers
9. Near Field Communication (NFC)
10. PayPal
11. P2P - Person to Person Payments

Best wishes for a great 2009 from Payments News and Glenbrook Partners! Work smart!

In a new article in its on-going Debt Trap series titled "Unspoken Link Between Credit Cards and Colleges", Jonathan Glater writes for the New York Times about colleges and universities and their relationships with credit card issuers. Describing the relationship between Bank of America and Michigan State, Glater writes: "the more students who take the banks’ credit cards, the more money the university gets." He goes on to write that "the relationships are reminiscent of those uncovered two years ago between student loan companies and universities."

Amazon.com has announced that effective today Bill Me Later will no longer be accepted as a payment option on Amazon.com. Bill Me Later was acquired earlier this year by eBay/PayPal. More details are available in the Amazon Seller Forum and in this article on AuctionBytes.

• NYTimes.com: Early Data Shows Holiday Sales Fell 2.3%
• mGive: First Year of Mobile Giving Out Performs First Year of Online Giving
• CreditCards.com: Best credit card stories of 2008
• Los Angeles Times: Firm says it can't pay money it collected for Little Leagues
• Bank Systems & Technology: Crisis a Marketing Opportunity for ING Direct