In a story titled "Cash Vanishes from Merchants' Accounts", Amy Barrett and Jeremy Quittner write for BusinessWeek about how some merchant acquirers are imposing new reserve requirements on some of their card accepting small business merchants.

Most processing agreements give the transaction giants the right to accumulate those reserves simply by holding back money the merchant is supposed to be paid after a credit-card transaction has cleared, often with little or no warning.

Edgar, Dunn & Company and Bankerstuff are providing three webinars in May to help financial institutions capitalize on opportunities while effectively managing the challenges of this rapidly changing economic climate:

• Future Directions in Building Customer Loyalty - May 14 @ 1:00 PM CDT
• Collection Trends for Financial Services in Turbulent Times - May 21 @ 1:00 PM CDT
• Segmenting and Marketing to the Unbanked Population - May 28 @ 1:00 PM CDT

Amazon Payments has introduced a free processing offer (through 9/30/09 - subject to certain conditions) for new users of its various payment services.

MasterCard Incorporated has announced financial results for the first quarter 2009 reporting that net revenue was $1.2 billion, a 2.2% decline versus the same period in 2008. MasterCard's gross dollar volume was up 0.3%, on a local currency basis, versus the first quarter of 2008, to $550 billion. Worldwide purchase volume during the quarter was also up 0.3% on a local currency basis versus the first quarter of 2008, to $411 billion. Purchase volume in the US declined 8% in the quarter with a 17% decline in credit and charge card volume in the US. The number of processed transactions increased 5.8% compared to the same period in 2008, to 5.1 billion. A presentation on the financial results is available online. READ MORE

• The Times: Is mobile banking safe?
• DMNews: Amazon continues to build Amazon Payments
• Arianna Huffington: Why Are Bankers Still Being Treated As Beltway Royalty?
• Seeking Alpha: Pay Back Time for Credit Card Companies