Amazon Web Services 2009 Startup Challenge includes a prize from Amazon Payments for the AWS Start-Up Challenge finalist with the most creative monetization strategy and use of Amazon Payments solutions. Winner of the Amazon Payments prize will go home with $10,000 in combined cash and Amazon Payments credits. Details here.

Fiserv says that more than two million U.S. households adopted online banking and bill payment during the last year, according to a recent consumer survey. "A total of 69.7 million households, representing four out of five households with Internet access, now use online banking services, primarily to access balance and account history and transfer money between accounts. In addition, 64.4 million households pay at least one bill online, either at a bank website or directly at a company website." READ MORE

Over on CGAP's Technology Blog, Olga Morawczynski, a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh, writes about Kenya's M-Pesa and what most of us don't know about M-Pesa. She credits much of its success not to the usual suspects we've heard about but rather to Sagentia, a technology consultancy firm based in Cambridge. As often happens with innovations, it was the small dedicated team working with the two big players that provided the focus to get things done!

In an article title "Not-So-Personal Banking", Laura Lorber writes for the Wall St. Journal about more small businesses avoiding trips to the bank to deposit checks they've received - instead using remote deposit capture to transmit an image of the check electronically to their bank.

Remote deposit capture is the equivalent of the electronic draft capture POS terminal that moved the credit card world from paper to electronics over 20 years ago - finally coming to the world of checking. One of the implications of RDC, of course, is that the local bank branch becomes less important. Said differently, banks can now market services to small businesses outside of their branch footprint.

The new J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Retail Bank Shopping Study finds that, when selecting a retail bank, shoppers place the most importance on the bank’s brand image. The study finds that 36 percent of a shopper’s selection decision is driven by the bank’s brand image, while branch proximity (21%) and products and services (14%) also considerably influence which bank shoppers ultimately choose. READ MORE

Yesterday, Prosper announced the successful completion of its registration process with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, Prosper's peer-to-peer (P2P) loans marketplace "has resumed for borrowers nationwide and lenders in 14 states with others soon to follow. Prosper is the first Internet auction-based P2P loans platform to have its registration statement declared effective by the SEC — a move that marks a significant breakthrough for the P2P lending industry." READ MORE

• Obopay Blog: Mobile Payments Talk with Carol Realini, CEO of Obopay
• Verifi, Inc. Names Joe Little Vice President of Sales
• Metavante Certifies Panini I:Deal™ Check Scanner
• Javelin Strategy and Research: Consumer Willingness To Share Responsibility for Security Allows Financial Institutions To Cut Losses and Increase Profitability
• Bob Herbert - NY Times: Chutzpah on Steroids - on the banking industry fighting back against the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency
• Merchant Advisory on the MasterCard Agreement to Prepay Future Payments at a Discount
• No1 Currency: 'British Holidaymakers Waste £784m on Card Charges Every Year'
• Fiserv Announces Five Credit Union Platform Agreements
• NetBanker: Prosper Back in Peer-to-Peer Lending Game with Full Approval of SEC
• New Aite Group Report: Procurement Cards: A Dormant Opportunity