PayPal has introduced a new tiered pricing plan which adjusts fees paid by sellers to PayPal for receiving money as their monthly payment volume increases. An FAQ on the new pricing is also available. The new plan takes effect August 6th.

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new report (PDF) declining to implement a "National Do Not Email Registry" -- because of the inability to properly authenticate the origin of email messages.

The FTC also said that anti-spam efforts should focus on creating a robust e-mail authentication system that would prevent spammers from hiding their tracks and thereby evading Internet service providers’ anti-spam filters and law enforcement. To help focus these efforts, the FTC also announced that it will be sponsoring a Fall 2004 Authentication Summit to encourage a thorough analysis of possible authentication systems and their swift deployment.

We've just posted some reflections on PayPal's new Buyer Credit offering which was introduced recently in partnership with GE Capital Consumer Card Company.

Comments and reactions to the piece are welcomed here.

Citigroup has announced a bi-national credit card allowing US cardholders to share a common account with another cardholder in Mexico and to pay for their purchases on their cards rather than sending them money using more expensive remittance services. READ MORE »

Alex Kazim, PayPal's VP of Marketing and Operations, spoke earlier today at a Bear Stearns investment conference in New York. A copy of his presentation (PDF) is available online.

The International Standards Team for Harmonisation has announced that it has delivered a standard XML core payment kernel for corporate-to-bank payment initiation and status messages. Nine banks have been involved in the effort: ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Nordea, Standard Chartered and Wells Fargo.

Jon Swartz writes in USA Today on the issues surrounding email. READ MORE »