Earlier this month, Visa International published a white paper titled The Virtuous Cycle - Electronic Payments and Economic Growth (PDF). It contains a number of interesting conclusions. For example:

Based on an analysis of a cross-section of 50 countries, increasing the existing share of electronic payments in a country by a margin of just 10 percent will generate an increase of 0.5 percent in consumer spending. For example, in a country that has a 20 percent card share of US$30 billion in consumer spending, enlarging that share to 22 percent will generate roughly US$150 million in incremental consumer spending.

Electronic payment networks have the potential to provide cost savings of at least 1 percent of GDP annually over paper-based systems through increased velocity, reduced friction and lower costs. For the U.S. economy, that translates into roughly US$60 billion in annual savings. In the U.K., savings would be on the order of US$10 billion annually.

Thor Olavsrud reports on the FSTC's review of SAML and the Liberty Alliance's Identity Federation Framework.