NACHA reported today that more than 60 percent of consumers are enrolled in Direct Deposit, up over 4 percent from 2003. Direct Payment (a pre-authorized debit that uses the Automated Clearing House network for recurring consumer bills such as mortgages, loans, and utilities) is being used by more than 50 percent of Americans. NACHA estimates that by using Direct Deposit and Direct Payment the average consumer can save more than $400 a year.

MasterCard has announced growth in purchase activity on MasterCard-branded cards of 13.6 percent for the first quarter 2004 as compared to the prior year.

PayPal has announced PayPal Web Services, a suite of new web services API's.

PayPal Web Services enables more streamlined and automated access to the PayPal platform, and broadens the audience for PayPal's ecommerce tools to include advanced technical developers and enterprise customers. PayPal Web Services are based on open standards, supporting Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL).

"Through PayPal Web Services, we are able expand the availability of advanced online payment capabilities to a new class of developers, third-party tool vendors and merchants," said Dave McClure, Director of PayPal's Developer Network. "These new standards-based APIs will allow almost anyone to create innovative applications and services incorporating PayPal."