As part of its third quarter earnings announcement earlier today, CyberSource announced that, effective January 1, 2010, its Board of Directors has promoted Michael Walsh to President & Chief Executive Officer of CyberSource. Walsh has been with CyberSource for over ten years and has served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales for the last five years. CyberSource's founder, current Chairman and CEO Bill McKiernan will continue in the role of Executive Chairman.

Earlier today, American Express reported financial results for the third quarter 2009. Overall for the quarter as compared to the prior year, billed business declined 11% to $156.6 billion, total cards in force declined 4% to 88.4 million and average basic cardholder spending declined 5% to $2,898. Receivables outstanding declined 31% in the Amex owned portfolio and 20% in the managed portfolio. The average merchant discount rate declined slightly from 2.56% to 2.54%.

Visa Inc. yesterday announced that John Partridge has been named President of the company. Partridge was formerly Chief Operating Officer. According to Visa, "he will continue to report to Joseph W. Saunders, Chairman and CEO of Visa Inc., and will oversee all client, marketing and product functions globally, enabling Visa to more effectively and efficiently allocate resources among markets to enhance its service to clients and speed Visa's growth."

The NFC Forum has made available a presentation given at the CTIA conference earlier this month titled "Making Money with NFC" that was presented by Debbie Arnold (NFC Forum), Dave Wentker (Visa, Inc.), Matt Ronning (SONY), David de Kozan (Cubic), and Mohammad Khan (ViVOtech). If you're interested in a good background on the current state of NFC-based mobile payments and other applications, this presentation provides a great overview.

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