In an article titled "Roping Consumers into Fee Tug-of-War", Maria Aspan writes for the American Banker about 7-Eleven's effort to garner consumer signatures on petitions that will be forwarded to the US Congress as it considers legislation dealing with credit card interchange fees.

Aspan writes that some industry observers feel that the time is right for such a petition drive as "a lot of people are just fed up with credit card companies in general and they're willing to sign anything".

The Federal Reserve released its monthly G.19 Consumer Credit report today showing that overall consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 1-1/2 percent in May 2009 while revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 3-3/4 percent.

NovoPayment has announced its regional forecast for prepaid general-purpose reloadable mobile and utilities cards - estimating a potential market of nearly US$160 billion annually by 2015. According to the company, "the forecast is part of a larger regional study for prepaid cards covering 15 countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela – that measured factors such as size of labor force, poverty rates, wages, banking and other metrics based on the company’s experience in the field." READ MORE »

Discover has announced that its U.S. Spending Monitor fell for the first time in four months from 86.2 to 85.6 (based out of 100) finding that "consumer attitudes toward the economy reversed course from the previous three months with more consumers expressing concern over the current state of the U.S. economy. Overall, 59 percent rated current economic conditions as poor, a 4-point increase from the previous month and the first increase since February." READ MORE »

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