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Menlo Park-based Glenbrook Partners has announced that Erin McCune has joined the firm as a partner.
"As a respected thought leader on treasury management issues and business-to-business payments, she broadens Glenbrook’s strategy practice to encompass corporate clients and the financial institutions that serve them." READ MORE »
The Bank of Canada has published a working paper titled "Market Structure and the Diffusion of E-Commerce: Evidence
from the Retail Banking Industry" 
by Jason Allen, Robert Clark, and
Jean-Francois Houde.
This paper studies the role that market structure plays in affecting the diffusion of electronic banking. Electronic banking (and electronic commerce more generally) reduces the cost of performing many types of transactions for firms. The full benefits for firms from adoption, however, only accrue once consumers begin to perform a significant share of their transactions online. Since there are learning costs to adopting the new technology firms may try to encourage consumers to go online by affecting the relative quality of the online and offline options. Their ability to do so is a function of market structure.
Late last week the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck down a mandatory arbitration clause in contracts by American Express that banned any type of class litigation. Here's the text of the court's decision .
The original litigation was brought in 2003 by a group of merchants seeking to have American Express offer different pricing for acceptance of its revolving credit card products vs. its traditional personal and corporate charge card products.
The plaintiffs assert that, by means of the “Honor All Cards” provision, merchants are faced with the choice of paying supracompetitive merchant discount fees (i.e., fees above competitive levels) on Amex’s new mass-market products or “inevitably los[ing] a significant portion of the sales they receive from businesses, travelers, affluent consumers, and others” who are the traditional users of Amex charge cards. This, the plaintiffs claim, amounts to an illegal “tying arrangement,” in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1."
The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Commerce released monthly figures for December showing that "personal income decreased $25.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $25.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, in December. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $102.4 billion, or 1.0 percent. In November, personal income decreased $44.0 billion, or 0.4 percent, DPI decreased $33.9 billion, or 0.3 percent, and PCE decreased $77.8 billion, or 0.8 percent, based on revised estimates."
Gemalto has announced a partnership with India-based technology partner mChek to bolster the range and choice of secured mobile banking solutions available on Gemalto SIM cards to markets in South Asia. READ MORE »
Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated. For job opportunities available for payments professionals, visit PaymentsJobs.com. Employers looking to hire payments professionals can post their job openings there as well.
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