Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP today announced the filing of a series of nationwide class action lawsuits against Bank of America, Wachovia, U.S. Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami for abusive overdraft fees. READ MORE

Four electronic payment companies - Chase Paymentech, Mustang MicroSystems, Inc., Semtek Corporation and Transaction Network Services - have joined the Secure POS Vendor Alliance (SPVA), a non-profit business organization founded by Hypercom, Ingenico S.A. and VeriFone. The SPVA works to advance compliance of existing payment card security standards, protect cardholder information and defend merchants and acquirers against security breaches. READ MORE

The Smart Card Alliance has released a new white paper titled "Fraud in the U.S. Payments Industry: Fraud Mitigation and Prevention Measures in Use and Chip Card Technology Impact on Fraud" developed by its Contactless and Mobile Payments Council.

"Criminals are known to exploit the weakest link in a payments infrastructure. With issuers in the rest of the world moving to EMV, it is likely that criminals are going to move counterfeit card activities to the U.S., attacking both U.S. and international issuers," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. "If the United States wants to avoid an incoming tide of higher loss, the industry must be willing and able to make investments in emerging technologies." READ MORE

Revolution Money has announced that Fifth Third Bank has joined its Revolution Money network as an issuing bank. According to Revolution, "the combination of Fifth Third Bank’s card-issuing capabilities with Revolution Money’s marketing and customer servicing and communication capabilities will provide a robust platform for expanded adoption of RevolutionCard."

Revolution Money Chairman Ted Leonsis appeared on CNBC this morning to discuss the deal with Fifth Third. He was joined by Jim Robinson III, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express, who recently invested in and joined the board of Revolution Money and Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL and Chairman of Revolution, LLC. READ MORE

INSIDE Contactless has announced an initiative that it says "creates a new class of mobile payment solutions that banks, brands, transit agencies and others can deploy quickly, easily and in a highly targeted way starting in 2010. INSIDE has already engaged with several innovative technology companies that share its vision to develop a variety of mobile payment solutions based on INSIDE's proven, certified MicroPass(r) platform that will enable existing mobile phones to support mobile payments, as well as transit, ID and access control applications. A number of these solutions expected to reach the market as early as this fall." READ MORE

First Data has announced a relationship with Yahoo! Inc. to provide merchants with "easy-to-implement eCommerce solutions for small and mid-size merchants eager to extend their businesses to the Internet. First Data will provide merchants with point-of-sale terminals and payment processing services to complement Yahoo! Merchant Solutions and Web Hosting subscription-based products, which allow small businesses to set up their online stores and catalog web sites with simple design tools and tracking features." READ MORE

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