Visa USA and SafeCHECK announced this morning that they've agreed to combine their check electronification efforts.

The combined service, to be run by Visa, will form a bank-owned, integrated electronic check processing solution that can significantly reduce the billions of dollars of paper check handling costs incurred by merchants and financial institutions annually.

The press release also cites NACHA statistics reporting that merchant adoption of check conversion at POS is growing at a rate of six per cent each month. Yesterday, an article in Bank Systems and Technology by Celent analyst Gwenn Bezard reviewed the current state of check conversion at the point of sale in the US.

Although there are signs that the complex alchemy of turning a check into an electronic payment will become mainstream at the lockbox, it is unlikely to happen in the next two to three years at the point-of-sale. This should encourage the industry to think beyond the "conversion" box, and consider other alternatives, such as financial incentives and disincentives.

eWeek has two articles this week profiling MasterCard's information systems technology. The first article by Executive Editor Stan Gibson comments on the IT investments made by MasterCard. The second article, also by Gibson, is an interview with Jerry McElhatton, MasterCard's president of global technology, and Robert Reeg, senior Vice president of systems development. It includes an interesting sidebar listing many of MasterCard's IT-related assets.

American Express announced this morning that it is expanding its ExpressPay pilot in the Phoenix area.

ExpressPay is an easy-to-use alternative to cash for making purchases at merchants where speed and convenience are important - such as quick serve restaurants, supermarkets, drug stores, gas stations, and corporate cafeterias. Users simply hold the ExpressPay key fob next to a companion reader at checkout to make purchases. Payment is authorized in seconds and no signature is required. ExpressPay links directly to an existing credit, charge or debit card to fund the purchase.

ExpressPay operates in two different modes. You can directly link it to an American Express card account and each payment will be posted to that account. Alternatively, you can load value into your ExpressPay account from an American Express, MasterCard, Visa or Discover Card and each payment will be deducted from the prepaid account balance. American Express has a website for ExpressPay customer service. A comprehensive FAQ is also available.