Are you involved in the merchant acquiring side of the payment card business? If so, you'll want to join the Merchant Acquirers group on LinkedIn and join over 400 of your merchant acquiring colleagues as we discuss industry topics. Check it out!

In an article titled "Discover Hoping a Light Touch on Cuts Pays Off", Maria Aspan writes for the American Banker about Discover - and how it has been pursuing a different strategy than other US credit card issuers with respect to cutting credit lines, raising interest rates, etc. Aspan quotes Discover EVP Harit Talwar as saying that the card issuer's "top priority is emphasizing a "consumer-friendly" strategy in the midst of issuer cutbacks. Discover is hoping the contrast helps win more business from its current cardholders."

Yesterday, the US Senate Banking Committee held a hearing titled "Modernizing Consumer Protection in the Financial Regulatory System: Strengthening Credit Card Protections". The primary purpose was to discuss The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (“the Credit CARD Act”) re-introduced by Sen. Chris Dodd earlier this week. A video of yesterday's hearing is available online.

In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd wrote: "For too long, the use of confusing, misleading and predatory practices has been standard operating procedure for many in the credit card industry. The list of troubling practices the credit card companies are engaged in is as lengthy as it is disturbing."

The prepared testimony of six witnesses who participated in yesterday's hearing is available online.

APACS, the UK payments association, has announced December 2008 spending figures showing that spending on plastic cards over the Christmas period reached £32.3 billion - up 0.3% from 2007, with £4.7 billion spent online. Debit card spending grew to £21.6 billion, up 3.1%, while credit card spending declined to £10.8 billion, down 4.8% from 2007. READ MORE

• Ecommerce Journal: Most unusual credit card deals
• Steve Klebe blogs about Mazooma and Noca - the two alternative payment schemes introduced this week
• PaySimple blog: Merchant Account - Card Acceptance Guidelines
• StorefrontBacktalk: Secret Service/FBI Reports “A Considerable Spike In Cyber Attacks” Against E-Tailers
• Guardian (UK): Charlie's Angles: The micropayments argument: do we want to turn the web into Zimbabwe?
• New Mercator Advisory Group Report: Credit Card Issuer Processing: State of the Industry
• BusinessWeek: Discover: Credit Where Credit Is Due: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
• BankInfoSecurity.com: Heartland Data Breach: What Can Banks Do? - Interview with Doug Johnson of the American Bankers Association
• Visa to Showcase Mobile Payments, Money Transfer and Payment-Related Services at GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009
• Bloomberg: Punctual Payers Rewarded by Card Companies With Higher Rates
• BBC: Dying cheques mark changing times