Jim Bruene's FinovateStartup conference is coming up next Tuesday in San Francisco. Tonight, Jim announced a new option for attending - via webcast instead of traveling to San Francisco.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, which was approved by the House Financial Services Committee today and will be considered on the House floor next week.

"The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights protects Americans against the unfair and often abusive practices of credit card companies. Americans should never be subject to excessive credit card fees, sky-high interest rates, and unfair, incomprehensible agreements that credit card companies revise at will. But during a recession, with so many families in economic peril, these practices can be devastating.

"This legislation is a departure from an era of government indifference to anti-consumer practices. I commend Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney for her tenacious work on this legislation in the face of continued opposition from corporate interests. I look forward to a strong, bipartisan vote in favor of the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights and to working with the Senate to send this critical pro-consumer legislation to President Obama for his signature into law."

PayPal's parent eBay announced financial results for the first quarter 2009 today. PayPal's revenue grew 11% year over year to $645 million. PayPal's purchase volume grew 18% on an foreign exchange-neutral basis to $15.9 billion. PayPal reported 73.1 active accounts, up 22%. PayPal's revenue ("global take rate") came in at 3.81% of payment volume with transaction expense rate at 1.16% and a transaction loss rate of 0.28%

Hypercom, Ingenico, and VeriFone have announced the formation of the Secure POS Vendor Alliance - SPVA, a non-profit business organization chartered with implementing common payment security standards among vendors of secure point-of-sale (POS) devices used by retailers, acquirers and cardholders alike. READ MORE

CyberSource has announced that its Authorize.Net small business solution will be releasing a new Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS) - calling it "a robust, rules-based fraud detection system that allows online merchants to identify and handle suspicious transactions using multiple filters, tools and custom settings." READ MORE

Wells Fargo has reported financial results for the first quarter of 2009 - reporting record profits of $3.05 billion on revenues of $21 billion. Revenues from cards and other fees were $1.8 billion.

“The best way to generate capital is to earn it,” said Wells Fargo President and CEO John Stumpf. “This has long been the hallmark of our company and we’re now seeing the initial signs of the earnings and capital-generating power of the combined Wells Fargo-Wachovia in our first quarter together, serving one of every three U.S. households."

Wells Fargo reported credit card chargeoffs grew to 10.13% with the bulk of those losses in the legacy Wells Fargo card portfolio. Its credit card portfolio has $22.8 billion in credit card outstandings (down 3%) which represents less than 3% of the bank's total loans. The bank also reported having 15.5 million active online customers and 3.7 million active bill pay customers (24% of online banking customers).

In an article titled "Banks Sway Bills to Aid Consumers", Stephen Labaton and Eric Dash report for the New York Times on the politics swirling in Washington over pending legislation regarding curtailing certain credit card issuer practices and renegotiation of mortgage terms in bankruptcy.

Regarding credit cards, President Obama is scheduled to meet with a group of industry executives tomorrow at the White House. During his campaign last year, Obama set out changes he would push for regarding credit card issuer practices - saying he would "establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in every credit card ... [and] establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers with unfair practices."

Meanwhile, the American Bankers Association has sent a letter to the House Committee on Financial Services - which is marking up pending credit card legislation today. The ABA writes:

H.R. 627 is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive in light of the sweeping credit card rules adopted by the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) in December 2008. Enactment of H.R. 627 adds further restrictions on the ability of credit card issuers to factor in risk when making credit decisions, and increases the already extensive operational challenges facing the industry as they prepare to comply with the Fed’s rules.

The Bancorp Bank and Planet Payment have announced an agreement to provide Planet Payment’s suite of products and services to Bancorp’s merchants and third party servicers in the U.S. payments market. As part of the business arrangement, Bancorp will utilize Planet Payment’s multi-currency processing platform to provide merchants with tools to increase their sales and operate their businesses more efficiently. READ MORE

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