West Australian reports on smart card integrator ERG's decision to exit its smart card business.

Visa International board chairman William P. Boardman has also been named Interim CEO of Visa International. Boardman replaces retiring CEO Malcolm Williamson on an interim basis until a new CEO is appointed.   » Continue Reading

Reuters is reporting that JP Morgan Chase executive Richard Srednicki has been elected chairman of the board of its US region.

First Data Corp. announced this morning the closing of its merger with Concord EFS.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corporation's 10-K report for 2003 is now available from the SEC's Edgar online site.

Jessie Ho reports in the Taiwan Times on PayPal's launch in Taiwan.

RSA Security reported today the results of its second annual Internet Insecurity Index -- with negative progress (from a score of 6 to a 7 on a 10 point scale) having been made in the last year.

In a related story, RSA Security reported the results of its second annual consumer survey on identity theft.   » Continue Reading

The US General Accounting Office has released a study on the use of Social Security Numbers (PDF).   » Continue Reading

David Weidner reports on CBS MarketWatch.com about Capital One's interest in diversifying beyond credit cards.

Acxiom and TransUnion have announced the availability of a new Fraud Management Platform to verify a consumer's identity at any point of sale. The two companies have made available a white paper (PDF) on the subject of identity theft.

Tower Group's Edward Kountz writes in Bank Systems and Technology Online about opportunities for the bank card industry in prepaid micropayments.   » Continue Reading

Magic Cards International has announced the launch of a new prepaid Visa card featuring the likeness of basketball great Magic Johnson on the face of the card.   » Continue Reading

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spoke this morning at the RSA Conference in San Francisco about Microsoft's various security-related initiatives. Included was an update on Microsoft's approach to reducing the volume of Internet email spam.

Microsoft this morning announced GIAIS, the Global Infrastructure Alliance for Internet Safety.   » Continue Reading

eBay yesterday introduced a new eBay Toolbar for Microsoft Internet Explorer users that includes Account Guard, a feature designed to thwart phishing attacks on eBay users. An FAQ is available online.   » Continue Reading

PassMark Security has introduced new countermeasures to enable enterprises to prevent phishing attacks on their Internet users.   » Continue Reading

An updated version our recent phishing analysis is now also available here on Payments News.   » Continue Reading

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2003, not adjusted for seasonal, holiday, and trading-day differences, was $17.2 billion, an increase of 25.1 percent (±4.2%) from the fourth quarter of 2002. Total retail sales for the fourth quarter of 2003 were estimated at $918.2 billion, an increase of 6.2 percent (±0.4%) from the same period a year ago.

MasterCard has announced that British Airways is the first global airline to adopt MasterCard's SecureCode online payer authentication service.   » Continue Reading

Wired carries a Reuters story about Atrua Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based startup funded by the venture capital groups of Ericsson, Nokia and Intel. Atrua's first product is a cell phone touchpad capable of user fingerprint verification. Details in the company's press release.   » Continue Reading

Wall St. Journal reporters Don Clark and Nick Wingfeld report (subscription reqd) on new techniques to verify online the identity of companies and computer users.   » Continue Reading

The Reserve Bank of Australia has designated Visa International's debit card scheme in Australia a payment system, a possible first step toward regulating it.

VeriSign this morning announced OATH, Open Authentication reference architecture along with a new network-based authentication utility. More information about OATH is available at a new OATH web site.

Japan Today reports on Japanese smart card-based e-money systems, including Suica and Bitwallet's Edy cards.

Gregory Lamb writes in the Christian Science Monitor about micropayments.

David Steiner writes in AuctionBytes about two emails he received from PayPal - or, rather, he thought they came from PayPal.   » Continue Reading

Kenneth Harney writes in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle about Providian's plans to give some of its credit card customers unlimited access to their credit scores including free email alerts anytime their scores move by more than 10 points.   » Continue Reading

Wong Kim Hoh reports in the Straits Times on Visa's contactless card technology.

Doreen Carvajal reports in the International Herald Tribune on the world of international money transfer.

Meanwhile, the immigrants themselves have transformed the post office in Saint-Denis into one of the busiest branches in France. But its chief business is no longer handling mail, according to Lionel Maestroni, the branch's postal manager. Behind the counters, he said, workers spend more time on financial transactions: dispensing money and making transfers.

Hugh Gallagher from Edgar, Dunn & Company shares his perspectives on issuer debit card strategies.

Among the interesting findings:

"...the typical issuer loses money on an average debit transaction – even without accounting for the recent declines in debit interchange brought about by regulators and merchants."

In a further expansion of its cash acceptance payment solutions, Western Union today announced a deal with AeroMexico.

MasterCard Advisors, a subsidiary of MasterCard International, has announced the acquisition of Tower Group from Reuters.   » Continue Reading

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a new report examining issues around counterfeiting of prescription drugs. Among other findings, the FDA has laid out a timeline leading to the adoption of RFID-tagging of packaging of prescription drugs between now and 2007.

NYCE has announced a new account-to-account money transfer service. The American Eagle Federal Credit Union is the first to allow customers to use the new service from its ATM's. AEFCU plans to launch use from its online banking site later this year.   » Continue Reading

Evan Ramstad reports in the Wall St. Journal on the success the Hong Kong Octopus e-money card has had.   » Continue Reading

US Bank announced today that it now has over two million online Internet banking customers.

Star Systems has announced the launch of STAR CHEK Direct, a direct check debit and verification service.   » Continue Reading

Gemplus has announced that it has been selected by Korea's SK Telecom to supply USIM card technology as part of its 3G W-CDMA network rollout.   » Continue Reading

MSNBC technology correspondent Bob Sullivan reports on one example of identity theft -- and the implications it had for the victim.   » Continue Reading

EDS held an analysts' meeting yesterday in New York. Audio files of the presentations along with PDF files of the presentation slides are available for downloading online.

The European Commission has announced that it has adopted a proposal to require biometric identifiers on passports, visas and residence permits.   » Continue Reading

Netflix is now accepting electronic checks for monthly subscription payment -- in addition to credit and debit cards.

ABC News.com consumer reporter Mellody Hobson takes a pretty comprehensive look at debit cards from a consumer's point of view.

Junko Yoshida reports in EE Times Online on the need for better security tools for smart card designers.   » Continue Reading

Gemplus has announced that it has begun deploying the first EMV-based cards in France on behalf of Societe Generale.   » Continue Reading

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a telephone based phishing attack in which fraudsters are attempting to talk cardholders into revealing the security codes from the back of their credit cards.

Gwenn Bézard, Senior Analyst at Celent Communications, reports in Bank Systems & Technology on the flurry of recent micropayment activity.

Washington Mutual announced plans today to launch 250 new "stores" in 2004.   » Continue Reading

Envia Online has announced the launch of its money transfer service to Latin America.   » Continue Reading

Jeremy Wagstaff blogs from Indonesia about an increase in corporate spoofing attacks where fraudsters attempt to gain valuable corporate information. More on this from MailFrontier.

Kevin Cox reports in Canada's Globe and Mail on efforts by central banks to combat counterfeiting through software.   » Continue Reading

Sony has introduced Puppy, a USB-based fingerprint identity token scheduled for availability later this spring.

Tumbleweed and the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) have released the latest statistics on the growth in phishing attacks. A full report (PDF) is also available for downloading.   » Continue Reading

Micropayment provider BitPass has announced the beta launch of Mperia, a new online music store for independent musicians.   » Continue Reading

Providian has announced the launch of two new card programs: Providian Real Rewards and Providian Real Information.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced the availability of its DataSIGN products, intended to allow enterprise use of digital signatures to secure transactions.   » Continue Reading

Anuradha Raghunathan reports in the Dallas Morning News (subscription required) on cutbacks in mass mailing solicitations by credit card issuers.   » Continue Reading

AuctionBytes reports that PayPal updated its User Agreement last Friday. See the 2/13/04 changes on PayPal's User Agreement page.

In a move to reduce costs for airlines, ARINC has announced plans to move away from the current use of magnetic stripe technology on airline tickets to using bar codes instead.

A new web site, CertificateSwap.com, allows gift card holders to swap their cards for others. The service charges sellers 7.5% of the sale price -- with sale listings being free of charge.

The UK Evening Standard's Patrick Hosking reports on the rollout of chip and PIN for credit and debit card acceptance in the UK.   » Continue Reading

IT security consultant and attorney Mary Kirwan writes in Canada's Globe and Mail about the potential tradeoff between convenience and security.   » Continue Reading

The UK's CRM Daily reports on fast food chain McDonalds and their use of new technologies.   » Continue Reading

The Melbourne Herald Sun reports on plans for a trial to ask customers for thumb prints to complete credit card purchases. The prints aren't used for authentication of the cardholder -- but, rather, simply captured on the merchant's copy of the sales receipt for use in the event the transaction is later found to be fraudulent.

Buffalo News reporter Jonathan Epstein takes a look at potential acquisition targets including Buffalo-based M&T Bank and Cleveland-based KeyCorp.

Information Week conducts an interview with US Department of Homeland Security Cyber Security head Amit Yoran.

Microsoft's MSN and Visa USA today announced Your Business, a web site targeting small businesses with ten or fewer employees. More by Joe Wilcox on the Microsoft Monitor Weblog.   » Continue Reading

Voice of America reporter Kristian Foden-Vencil discusses a new company, Identity Safeguards, offering identity theft insurance.

Diane Lewis reports in the Boston Globe on the increasing use of payroll cards.

PayPal's new Developers Network weblog highlights a couple of new features including the ability to make a payment to most merchants without the buyer having to signup for a PayPal account and payment page customization options for PayPal merchants.

Card Technology reports on the wedding of Subroto Roy's two sons today in India. Guests must bring the smart cards they received with the invitation.   » Continue Reading

The PayPal Developer Network has launched its own weblog. PayPal also launched a number of new features today including paypal.de for German users.

Congratulations to the PayPal team in getting this weblog launched. As far as I can recall, this is the first weblog and use of syndicated data by a company in the financial services/payments space! And they did it using TypePad - which also powers Payments News - in a very cool way.

Creditman reports that Experian has won Barclaycard's new application decisioning business.

Jan Stafford reports in SearchEnterpriseLinux.com on Datavantage's choice of Linux for implementing its new stored value system platform.

Laura Sullivan writes in the Baltimore Sun about email fraud and law enforcement activities underway to try to deal with it.   » Continue Reading

Antone Gonsalves reports in InternetWeek.com on the potentially negative side effects of overseas outsourcing of activities involving quantities of personal data.   » Continue Reading

The Association of Financial Professionals (AFP) reports on a recent meeting with the Federal Reserve.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has issued a press release reminding member banks not to process transactions on MasterCard cards associated with any illegal activity.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden has issued a consumer alert in his state regarding phishing email attacks.

Ina Steiner reports on AuctionBytes on the latest gimmick being used by fraudulent sellers to fleece buyers.   » Continue Reading

Laura Rush writes in ecommerce-guide.com about recent reports of increasing fraud impacting smaller e-tailers.

PayPal Europe is ready to go -- along with a complete list of FAQ's.

Digital Transactions reports on Pay by Touch's CEO Craig Ramsey's views of marketplace adoption of his company's biometric-based payment acceptance technology.   » Continue Reading

Evan Williams reports on a phishing attack impersonating PayPal. John Robb shares his son's story. And yet another similar experience.

Meanwhile, Lexington Snitch columnist Michael Jackman shares his perspective.

Boland Hill Media has launched Digital Transactions, a magazine and associated online news site covering trends in the electronic exchange of value. Boland Hill Media was founded by Robert A. Jenisch and John D. Stewart, both of whom have long experience in the financial media.

Don Park puts together a demo of what he calls "visual spoofing".

The AP has a story this morning on employers using pre-paid cards for paychecks, cash bonuses, flexible spending accounts and other fixed allowances.

The American Banker reports that MasterCard is raising credit card interchange fees effective beginning in April.

William Rushbaum reports in the New York Times on a New York organized crime attack that bilked consumers out of $200 million over five years by adding bogus charges to their phone bills.   » Continue Reading

William Jackson reports in Government Computer News about the Federal Identity and Credentialing Committee's guidelines for developing interoperable federal identification systems based on smart cards. The guidelines themselves (.DOC file) are available online.

Katrina Brooker provides a look back at how the credit card has changed life for the Fortune 500 and for the rest of us in the new issue of Fortune.   » Continue Reading

Consumer Reports makes mention of RFID in a sidebar titled Beyond Bar Codes: New Ways to Track Products and People.

Ronald J. Mann of the University of Texas Law School has published a paper looking at the legal and policy issues associated with the emergence of new Internet payment intermediaries.   » Continue Reading

The Bank of England's Helen Allen has published a paper on e-payments (PDF).   » Continue Reading

Simon Lelieveldt blogs about a recent summary report from the European Payments Council.

In a press release today, Pulse EFT Association released the results of a study it commissioned comparing the US debit payments system with that of Canada.   » Continue Reading

Creditman reports on data from Experian that indicates victims of identity theft in the UK aren't aware of the theft for an average of 16 months from the time the theft actually occurred.

Jeff Harrow takes a look at the potential privacy implications associated with deployment of RFID tags.

Jaikumar Vijayan reports in this week's Computerworld on difficulties facing the adoption of smart cards for enterprise authentication and security applications.

Near field communication technology is being increasingly mentioned for proximity and mobile commerce applications. Philips has a good summary of NFC on its website.

Maximus announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the US GSA for valued at up to $93.6 million to deliver a smart card system to NASA for eventual use by 90,000 NASA employees and contractors.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard announced this morning that it has entered into a strategic alliance with ABN Amro Bank.   » Continue Reading

A friend points out that Costco.com accepts for payment American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa, and Costco's private label card -- while the physical Costco stores only accept American Express and Costco cards. Curious.

VeriSign has updated its quarterly look at Internet usage, security and fraud.

Visa USA reported this morning that the dollar volume on Visa-branded cards increased to over $1.1 trillion, up 11.6 percent in 2003 as compared to 8.1 percent growth in 2002.   » Continue Reading

Dallas Morning News writer Pamela Yip takes a look at the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT) passed last fall by Congress.

Knoxville News-Sentinel business writer Larissa Brass takes a look at phishing.

AuctionBytes columnist Ina Steiner is urging eBay sellers to take a close look at PayPal's Buyer Protection Plan.   » Continue Reading

An interesting weblog post says that Southwest Airlines currently books about 53 percent of its total passenger revenue online at its Southwest.com web site -- totaling more than $3 billion annually.

Tony Adams writes in the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer about how the culture at payment processor TSYS is being stressed by a recent layoff.   » Continue Reading

Sydney's Morning Herald reports on credit card growth in Australia.

The US Federal Reserve reported today that total consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 5-1/4 percent during 2003. Growth in total consumer credit for the fourth quarter of 2003 was only 3-3/4 percent.

Revolving consumer credit such as credit cards grew at an annual rate of 3.6 percent during 2003 with only a 2.8 percent growth in the fourth quarter. At the end of 2003, $742.5 billion in revolving consumer credit was outstanding.

Mark Samuels reports in Computing (UK) on Visa staffer Stuart Brocklehurt's efforts in Iraq.   » Continue Reading

Donna Howell in Investors Business Daily reviews contactless payment cards   » Continue Reading

IBM has a case study on the use of web services by FDC's First Data Resources unit.

First Data Corp.'s Western Union subsidiary has announced that it has received a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) from the US Department of Justice.   » Continue Reading

Bloomberg reports on comments by Citigroup CEO Charles Prince regarding the global rival it sees in the combination of JP Morgan Chase and Bank One. The story also reports that a rumored merger between Citigroup and Deutsche Bank has been put on hold.

American Express senior management today provided the financial community with an update on the company. Presentations and text of management's speeches are available online. Remarks by David House focused particularly on Amex's partnerships with banks. An audio archive of the presentations along with almost an hour of Q&A is also available online.

Citibank and partner Shanghai Pudong Development Bank have launched their first international Visa credit cards in China.   » Continue Reading

ID Analytics has announced it is beginning a UK National Study on Identity Fraud.   » Continue Reading

NetDeposit has named Royce D. Brown president and COO.

Simson Garfinkel writes in The Nation about the privacy aspects of RFID.   » Continue Reading

Bank Systems and Technology has a brief article by Aaron McPherson of Financial Insights on the evolution of mobile payments.

First Data Corp. has made available online its Q4 Investor Presentation (37.5 MB PowerPoint file).

The Taipei Times reports on MasterCard's presentation of PayPass to banks in Taiwan.   » Continue Reading

Enhyper has announced the Payments Systems and Security Conference to be held in London June 18-19, 2004.

Don Oldenburg reports in the Washington Post on a recent phishing scam that used spoofed email from the FDIC as bait.   » Continue Reading

Chicago's NBC5 takes a look at payroll cards.

CNN Money reports on contactless cards including MasterCard's PayPass and American Express' Express Pay.

Jennifer Bayot reports in the New York Times on false ID's made at Motor Vehicle offices.   » Continue Reading