In an article titled "Card Act's Collateral Damage: Networks", Maria Aspan writes for the Monday edition of the American Banker about Citi "slashing some travel insurance benefits on its high-end credit cards." According to Aspan, "Citi said last week that it is reducing the amount of "travel accident insurance" it offers on several elite cards, in some cases to a quarter of the former coverage levels, effective Oct. 1."

Earlier this week, Nokia announced its Nokia Money initiative. Here are a couple of interesting blog posts discussing its prospects:

• Nokia Money – An Uphill Battle by Mark Beccue, ABI Research.
• Finnish Line by Dave Birch, Consult Hyperion.

What do you think? Add your comments below!

Action to prevent criminals abusing new mobile phone technology, which allows them to be used like debit, credit and pre-pay cards, has been agreed by the UK government, mobile phone and card payments industries, Home Office Minister Alan Campbell announced today. READ MORE »

In an article titled "RBC to offer both Visa, MasterCard products", Scott DeVeau writes for the Financial Post that "Royal Bank of Canada announced its plans Wednesday to become the first major credit card issuer in the country to offer both Visa and MasterCard products."

In an article titled "Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger", David Cho writes for the Washington Post about how the banks in the US who regulators thought were "too big to fail" have, ironically, become even bigger as a byproduct of the economic crisis. ""The oligopoly has tightened," says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.

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