Tekrati reports on a new Frost & Sullivan analyst report that explores how alternative technologies including proximity cards, USB dongles, etc. could affect adoption of smart card solutions.

Lightbridge on Wednesday reported second quarter financial results including results from its Authorize.net payment processing business that was acquired from InfoSpace on March 31, 2004.   » Continue Reading

Malcolm Fowler writes an opinion piece in CRM Buyer about loyalty programs and related technologies.   » Continue Reading

Comdata has announced it is teaming with eFunds to offer a surcharge-free network option to its payroll card customers at the more than 15,000 eFunds US ATM network locations.

Leslie Walker asks in the Washington Post whether we all just need to go to school, a digital self-defense school!

Phisher attacks are skyrocketing. They have the Internet and banking industries terribly worried -- though apparently not enough to fix the problem yet.

Business Week's Robbie Vorhaus takes a look at building a business using credit cards as a financing source.

Knowledge@Wharton takes a look at Hispanic banking in the US.

Lundquist Consulting reports that consumer bankruptcy filings in the first six months of 2004 have declined 3 per cent as compared to the first six months of 2003. The largest decline took place in California where filings decreased 11.8 percent over 2003.

Oberthus Card Systems has announced its ID-One 64K dual interface contact and contactless smart card has received FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certifcation, qualifying it to compete globally for e-passport contracts.

PayPal has been emailing members regarding procedures they should follow for submitting claims related to the recent settlement by PayPal of a class action lawsuit.   » Continue Reading

Earlier this month, the FDIC released a white paper as part of its Future of Banking series looking at limited-purpose banks (PDF) including credit card banks.

The Star reports on a mobile commerce solution developed by Cassis Services working with SK Telecom.

Thomas Simonis writes in India's Financial Express on other applications for smart cards -- particularly related to health care and transportation.

Bob Sullivan reports on MSNBC about MailFrontier's recent survey of consumer reactions to phishing emails.

About 28 percent of the time, the consumers incorrectly identified the phishing messages as legitimate. What's more, the legitimate e-mails were often dismissed as potential fraud.

Fortune writer Ellen Florian takes a look back at the early days of ATM machines.   » Continue Reading

The National Retail Federation announced today that it has filed comments with the Federal Reserve Board on the subject of fees charged by banks for consumers using a PIN number with their debit cards.   » Continue Reading

American Express CFO Gary Crittenden held a conference call yesterday afternoon to review second quarter financial results. In the talking points (PDF) prepared for the call, Crittenden noted that Amex's discount rate (fees charged to merchants) had declined 3 basis points from the first quarter of 2004 and from the same quarter last year.   » Continue Reading

Jozef Purdes writes in DIY Games on the potential use of micropayments in online games.

Philips has announced that NASA has selected its MIFARE contactless chip technology for use in smart cards enabling physical site access.   » Continue Reading

Stored Value Systems has announced a strategic investment in ProfitPoint, a provider of gift and loyalty card solutions to small and medium-sized retailers and restaurants.   » Continue Reading

Velosant, the electronic invoice presentment and payment business of eONE Global, has been acquired by Atlanta-based Harbor Payments.

"Adding Velosant's clients to our already impressive customer base makes Harbor Payments the clear leader within the EIPP market," said Harbor Payments' CEO, Ashish Bahl. "We are the only player in the marketplace that can offer a fully integrated solution across all collection and disbursement functions including EIPP, EBPP, payment management and disbursement," stated Bahl.

The Federal Reserve has published final amendments to Regulation CC and its commentary as part of the implementation of Check 21.

The Board's amendments: (1) set forth the requirements of the Check 21 Act that apply to banks; (2) provide a model disclosure and model notices relating to substitute checks; and (3) set forth bank indorsement and identification requirements for substitute checks. The amendments also clarify some existing provisions of the rule and commentary.

The Board's Federal Register notice is available online.

American Express has reported second quarter financial results including an 18% increase in card-related discount revenues.

"Our record results this quarter reflected outstanding growth in cardmember spending among consumers, small businesses, corporations and on cards issued on our network by bank partners," said Kenneth I. Chenault, Chairman and CEO. "Continued investments in the card business helped us to capitalize on competitive opportunities and generated broad increases in the retail, everyday spending, travel and entertainment sectors of the market."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report by analyst Nick Holland titled POSsibilities: The Point of Sale Industry - Global Markets and Players.   » Continue Reading

David Robinson reports in the Buffalo News about online consumer aggregation services.   » Continue Reading

VeriSign has just published the third edition of its Internet Security Intelligence Briefing.

This edition highlights Internet usage trends, threat and vulnerability patterns, and best practices to improve enterprise security. The report features a section devoted to the analysis of phishing attacks, a fast-growing category of criminal scams that trick Internet users into disclosing personal information, leading to identity theft.

Mark O'Neill writes in AuctionBytes about Checkfree's Auction Payments service and some differences between it and PayPal for auction sellers.

Julie Tripp reports in the Oregonian on Corillian's recently announced anti-phishing solution.

The Taipei Times carries an AP story from Tokyo on NTT DoCoMo's wireless network and new cellphones capable of carrying electronic cash.

To pay you simply wave your cellphone within a few centimeters of a special display found in stores, restaurants and vending machines around Japan. A fairy-like tinkling sound means your purchase is being deducted from the embedded chip using radio-frequency ID technology. It's instantaneous.

Linda Punch reports in Credit Card Management on the progress being made by online ecommerce merchants in reducing their losses due to cardholder chargebacks.

The progress e-merchants made against chargebacks over the past year is encouraging. Nevertheless, the battle rages on.

While chargeback ratios have "come down significantly, it's still a big problem," says Visa's McCarthy. Chargebacks for face-to-face transactions are "somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 cents to 8 cents out of every $100 put on a Visa card," he says. "We are still in the 25-cents-to-30-cents range in the e-commerce channel. There's still a big gap we want to close."

Visa USA announced it has completed preparations to ensure it will be capable of handling peak season transaction volumes later this year of over 6,000 transactions per second.

Jathon Sapsford reports in Friday's Wall St. Journal on how card-based payments are replacing cash in the USA.

Last year, cash was used in 32% of retail transactions, down from 39% in 1999. Credit card usage has remained stable, accounting for about 21% of purchases during that time. Meanwhile debit cards, which take money out of checking accounts immediately after each purchase, shot up to 31% of purchases last year, from 21% in 1999.

The TimesLeader.com reports on teething problems with the Philadelphia Parking Authority's smart card program.

Lesley Stones reports from Johannesburg in AllAfrica.com on the quest for a cashless society.

Expectations that electronic banking and plastic cards will ever create a cashless society are about as unrealistic as the fanciful notion that one day we will all work in a paperless office. Just as people will not relinquish sheets of paper for electronic documents, people trust cash too much to replace it entirely with transactions based on the electronic transfer of digits.

Pay By Touch has announced that its fingerprint-scanning payment system has been deployed in four Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. grocery stores in South Carolina.   » Continue Reading

eBay this afternoon announced its second quarter financial results including perhaps some surprising results for PayPal.   » Continue Reading

The Chicago Tribune is running a story tonight from the Boston Globe about how mini-credit cards are a big hit with consumers (subscription reqd).

ExxonMobil has announced a promotion offering new and existing Speedpass customers a RaceCase in exchange for registering and completing four purchases using their Speedpass between July 1 and Sept 30 (must include two fuel purchases for a minimum of 10 gallons each and two non-fuel purchases for a mininum of $5 each). More information at www.speedpass.com.

Verifone announced this morning that Burger King has selected the Verifone Omni 3750 payment terminal for deployment to more than 2,000 company owned and franchise restaurants. The 3750 supports both dial-up and IP "always on" connectivity options -- apparently an important factor in Burger King's selection of the 3750 terminal.

First Data Corp. reported earnings this morning for the second quarter with earnings per share up 15% on a revenue increase of 22% as compared to the same quarter last year. This reports includes the full effects of the merger with Concord EFS completed earlier this year.

Citi Cards has announced the launch of the Thank You Redemption Network, a new loyalty rewards program for Citi cardholders and retail banking customers.   » Continue Reading

CyberSource and I4 Commerce have announced they're partnering to make it easier for merchants to implement I4 Commerce's Bill Me Later payment service.   » Continue Reading

Kevin Poulsen writes in Security Focus about the upgrades now underway to address ATM PIN pad security and certification requirements.

Earlier this month, Visa International announced it was postponing its original July 1, 2004 compliance deadline for deploying tested and approved ATMs.

Creditman reports on NOCHECK, a UK-based online payment service -- having recently passed the milestone of having processed £100 million.   » Continue Reading

Jack in the Box restaurants has announced that it has completed implementation and now accepts Visa, MasterCard and Discover cards at all of its company-owned and many of its franchisee-owned restaurant locations.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced that it has been named on ComputerWorld's list of top places to work in information technology.

The latest issue of the Smart Card Alliance's Smart Card Talk newsletter is now available. The Alliance has a webinar coming up later this week focusing on merchant and consumer benefits from contactless payment technologies.

In its earnings release this morning, Wells Fargo included the following highlights of its Internet-related activity: 5.6 million active online customers, up 30 percent from prior year; 1.9 million bill pay customers, up 36 percent from prior year; 485,000 active online small business customers, up 37 percent from prior year; over 1 million online statements now distributed monthly

US Bancorp reported earnings this morning that included a 16.4 percent growth in merchant processing services revenues at its Nova Information Systems subsidiary.

Merchant processing services revenue was higher in the second quarter of 2004 than the same quarter of 2003 by $23.3 million (16.4 percent), reflecting an increase in transaction volume and the purchase of two European merchant acquiring businesses, which accounted for approximately $7.1 million of the increase.

Off-premise ATM supplier Triton has announced that it is opening up its ATM interface specifications through the release of its Triton Standard.

The Financial Times is reporting in Tuesday's edition that JP Morgan Chase is in the late stages of considering a bid for the UK's Egg Internet-based bank.

Payment Technologies has announced it is providing the technology platform supporting Sony of Canada's Pulse loyalty program. See also Sony Canada's press release on the Pulse customer loyalty program.   » Continue Reading

Jay Boehmer writes in BTNonline.com about security standards from MasterCard and Visa affecting online merchants.   » Continue Reading

Sasha Talcott reports in the Boston Globe on mini-cards being issued by Bank of American, Discover and others and the higher usage those cards have as a result of consumer convenience.   » Continue Reading

The Houston Chronicle reports that due to delays in getting a new stored value MetroCard system working for the Houston Metro, the cards will not be accepted.

Caroline Mayer and Griff Witte report in Monday's Washington Post regarding increasing concerns about checking account fraud.   » Continue Reading

Michael Luo reports in today's New York Times about how New Yorkers have become experts at quickly swiping their MetroCard fare cards through transit turnstiles.   » Continue Reading

Julie Tripp writes in the Oregonian on some of the implications of Check 21.   » Continue Reading

Emily Achenbaum reports in the Charlotte Observer on how stolen credit cards are being used to buy gift cards -- before the credit cards themselves are reported missing.

Jenifer Nii reports in the Deseret News on 1st eTech's biometric secured data card. More information about 1st eTech is available on their web site.

Glenbrook's Russ Jones has posted a new Glenbrook research note exploring the transaction aggregation platform recently announced by Peppercoin as V2.0.   » Continue Reading

The July edition of the Glenbrook Flash newsletter is now available on the Glenbrook website. This edition includes coverage of Peppercoin, Blackboard, Coinstar, I-S-Cubed, Next Estate and Vindicia.

National Processing, Inc. (NPC) -- now in the process of being acquired by Bank of American -- reported earnings yesterday. In an industry that some pundits claim is "experiencing pricing pressure", NPC reported a 17% increase in revenue year over year on transaction volumes up 16% and payment dollar volume up 14-15%.

Kevin Shay reports in the Maryland Business Gazette on the increasing acceptance of card-based payments at fast food restaurants.   » Continue Reading

President Bush this morning signed into law the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has published an article reviewing the effects that its recent reforms have had on the credit card industry (PDF) in that country.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced that its current president and chief executive officer, Carl Pascarella, plans to retire from Visa in 2005.

[Update - July 11, 2005: Visa USA has announced John Philip Coghlan as its new president and CEO, replacing former CEO Carl Pascarella.]

Michael Cohn writes about an increase in the apparent involvement of organized crime in mounting phishing attacks.

Liz Pulliam Weston reports on MSN Money on techniques to prevent attacks on your bank account.

Leslie Walker reports in the Washington Post on Moogul.com, a new website billing itself as the "eBay of renting and sharing." See Moogul's About Us page for more information about the company.   » Continue Reading

41st Parameter, a Scottsdale, AZ-based startup, has announced PhishingNet, a product designed to allow enterprise customers to "immediately differentiate between legitimate and fraudulent users on their websites, even when UserId’s and passwords have been compromised."   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin and Ipsos-Insight have published the results of a consumer survey focusing on online purchases of digital content by U.S. consumers.   » Continue Reading

Barney Beal reports on SearchCRM.com on the potential implications of RFID and wireless POS technologies on merchant loyalty programs.

Corillian has announced the Corillian Fraud Detection System designed to allow financial institutions to detect and prevent phishing attacks on their customers.   » Continue Reading

Ken Berzof reports in the Louisville, KY Courier-Journal (NPC's home town) on the acquisition announced yesterday of NPC by Bank of America.

National Processing processes debit- and credit-card transactions with about 1,350 employees at its processing and call center on Durrett Lane. The union could boost National Processing's Louisville presence, said David Fountain, chief financial officer. "Bank of America is intent on growing its merchant business and making Louisville its headquarters. That sounds positive to me," he said.

David Akin reports in the Globe and Mail on Toronto-Dominion Bank's decision to outsource the management of its ATM network to Hewlett-Packard that will be worth some C$420 million over seven years to HP.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has posted comments it has received from the industry on its proposed EFTPOS and ATM interchange fee reforms.

AirPlus International has announced it is partnering with GE Corporate Payment Solutions to introduce the AirPlus Corporate Card to the U.S. market.   » Continue Reading

Investor Outlook Ventures profiles the CEO of one of its portfolio companies: Mark Goldstein, CEO of InStoreCard.   » Continue Reading

Tim Boreham writes in The Australian about the National Australia Bank's new co-branded American Express card and wonders whether the NAB was motivated to launch the card because of the Reserve Bank of Australia's regulation of Visa and MasterCard interchange fees.   » Continue Reading

Bank of America has announced it is acquiring National Processing, Inc. (NPC) from National City Corporation for $1.4 billion in cash. When combined with its existing merchant acquiring business, the acquisition will result in Bank of America being the second largest merchant acquirer in the U.S. market.   » Continue Reading

NACHA has announced a major surge in the growth of accounts receivable (ARC) e-check payments as major billers are rapidly adopting the use of ACH to truncate checks in their lockbox operations.   » Continue Reading

ComputerWorld reports on Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vt) Anti-Phishing Act of 2004.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced that it is launching a new national marketing campaign focused on positioning Visa as the card of choice among high-end consumers.   » Continue Reading

We're often asked by our readers how they can subscribe to Payments News. Here's what we recommend.   » Continue Reading

Shannon Buggs reports in the Houston Chronicle on the costs that may be associated with certain payroll debit cards and questions the lack of a savings mechanism on the cards.

Meanwhile, an AP story in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette highlights the growth that Visa and its member banks are seeing on its payroll card product.

The potential market is huge. About $11 billion in payroll payments and $4 billion in benefits payments such as commissions and incentives were loaded onto prepaid cards in 2003, according to a study by the Mercator Advisory Group in Shrewsbury, Mass. Such payments are growing at more than 11 percent a year, said Tim Sloane, Mercator’s director of debit advisory service.

If cards replaced checks issued each year to 130 million employees who lack bank accounts, are temporary employees or work at remote locations, such payments could reach an annual $109.8 billion, Sloane said.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel talks to Investors Business Daily about PayPal's IPO two years ago as compared to Google's upcoming IPO.

PayPal started the IPO process a little earlier (in its life). It wasn't profitable then, but became profitable in early 2002. Google became profitable earlier, but it held off going public.

Both companies in some ways are very similar. They made Internet business models more workable. PayPal took the online payments model, which had largely failed, and got it to work. Google took online advertising, which was more or less failing in 2001, and got that to work.

The European Commission has announced it has sent a statement of objections to nine major French banks and Groupement des Cartes Bancaires relating to certain fees and rules regarding the issuance of CB cards in France that the Commission believes may limit competition.   » Continue Reading

Jathon Sapsford reports in this morning's Wall St. Journal that the head of JP Morgan Chase's credit card business has resigned (subscription required) from the board of MasterCard International.

J.P. Morgan and MasterCard both said the resignation of Richard Srednicki from the board of MasterCard doesn't have any bearing on whether the newly merged bank will go with Visa or MasterCard. "The action was a necessary step given the governance rules of the card associations and the merger and combination of Bank One's and Chase's credit-card businesses," said J.P. Morgan spokesman David Chamberlin.

CashCard, Australia's largest ATM operator and a subsidiary of First Data Corp., has submitted comments to the Reserve Bank of Australia urging reforms in the fees associated with ATM transactions including setting the ATM interchange fee to zero.

The Star (Malaysia) reports on comments by MasterCard country manager Jim Cheah about his optimism that the adoption of smart cards will significantly reduce credit card fraud losses.

Virgil Larson reports in the Omaha World-Herald on the announcement of First Data Corp.'s loss of JP Morgan Chase's card issuing processing business to TSYS.

First Data declined to talk about the impact that the loss of a major client and 17 percent of First Data's accounts would have on its Omaha operations, which employ 6,300 people. The number of cards being lost appears to be disproportionately higher than the revenue involved. More than a year ago, slightly more than half the number of cards was said to represent about $150 million, about 1 percent of the revenue of First Data's Card Issuing Services division, which includes First Data Resources in Omaha.

WildCard Systems and US Bank have announced they are working together to introduce a new Visa Debit gift card to be sold in Macerich-owned shopping malls.   » Continue Reading

APACS has announced that it expects in the UK that the payment volume of card payments will for the first time exceed that of cash payments for 2004 (PDF).   » Continue Reading

Chuck Williams reports in the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer (TSYS' home town) on the TSYS win of all of JP Morgan Chase's credit card processing business announced last night.

The deal strikes a blow at First Data Resources, a Nebraska-based processor that is in direct competition with TSYS. First Data had been processing the 87 million cards that will now fall into TSYS computers. First Data is the nation's largest electronic payment processor, while TSYS is second. This deal could flip-flop the two, putting TSYS at the top.

Separately, First Data Corp. this morning issued a press release confirming last night's Chase/TSYS announcement.

First Data Corp., a global leader in electronic commerce and payment services, today confirmed that it has been notified by JPMorgan Chase of its intention to move its card processing business from the First Data system.

"First Data will continue to work with JPMorgan Chase to ensure a smooth transition," said Charlie Fote, chairman and chief executive officer, First Data. "First Data expects this to occur within the next 18 months."

The Taipei Times reports on Visa International's launch with several member banks of smart card-based debit cards in Taiwan.

JP Morgan Chase and TSYS announced late today that Chase has selected TSYS to provide credit card processing for the merged card portfolios of the former Bank One Corp. and JPMorgan Chase. A definitive contract is expected to be completed within a few weeks.   » Continue Reading

Amy Wu reports in today's San Francisco Chronicle on a recent study by Deloitte showing a large increase in offshoring of jobs by financial services firms.

The report forecasts that by 2010, the world's 100 largest financial institutions will move $400 billion of their cost base offshore, saving an average of just under $1.5 billion annually each. The survey also forecasts that by 2010 more than 20 percent of the financial industry's global cost base will have gone offshore.

A study by FDC's Valuelink reports that gift cards are becoming increasingly used in corporate incentive programs.   » Continue Reading

Edgar Dunn's Ken Howes explores the merchant card acquiring business (PDF). Howes suggests that some of the industry folklore about that side of the business needs to be re-examined and explores some new opportunities for business growth.

Your Credit Card Companies, a group of financial services companies whose membership includes Capital One, Chase Manhattan Bank USA, Citigroup, Discover Card, MasterCard and MBNA, has published a press release on the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2004 (FACT Act) highlighting the benefits of the act for consumers.

The Object Management Group has announced that its Electronic Payments Interoperability Working Group (EPI-WG) has issued a Request for Information to the finance industry and other users and processors of electronic payments seeking to shape a standard electronic payments framework that lets institutions everywhere interoperate without replacing existing systems. The RFI is available online.   » Continue Reading

AP writer Joshua Freed reports in the San Francisco Chronicle on "demon customers" that some retailers and banks find unprofitable to service.   » Continue Reading

NEC has announced that its fingerprint identification technology ranked first in an evaluation conducted by the US Department of Justice. The full evaluation report is available online.

Fifth Third Bank has announced that Charles Drucker has been appointed president of its Fifth Third Processing Solutions merchant acquiring business unit.   » Continue Reading

Munir Kotadia reports on Silicon.com about Barclaycard's pilot of two-factor authentication technology with 5,000 of its UK credit and debit card customers. In partnership with nCipher, the bank has issued small card readers to its customers that contain a numerical keypad and display. By inserting a smart card into the reader and entering a PIN, a unique code is displayed on the reader which can then be input by the cardholder to complete a transaction, logon, etc. The combination provides a higher level of assurance about the transaction because it combines something the customer knows with something the customer has.

The AP's Mark Jewell reports in USA Today on the security procedures followed by card-accepting merchants to protect sensitive credit card data as highlighted by a recent compromise at BJ's Wholesale Club.   » Continue Reading

Judy Ward reports in Bank Systems & Technology Online about increased marketing by banks of business debit cards.   » Continue Reading

Paul Brilsen reports in the New Zealand Herald on the security threats from keystroke logging software.   » Continue Reading

Mitchell Pacelle reports in a front page story in today's Wall St. Journal on the fees and variable pricing strategies being used by credit card issuers.   » Continue Reading

Simon Hayes reports in Australian IT on plans by the National Australian Bank to use SMS to send a one-time PIN to the bank's customer a logon time to thwart phishing attacks.

Under the new security regime, which will be piloted in September and rolled out at the end of the year, National's one million internet banking customers will be offered the option of registering their mobile phone number with the bank, which will SMS a unique PIN to the phone during each transaction. Customers will then enter the PIN on the website to confirm the transaction.

The Federal Reserve has released its annual report to Congress on the profitability of credit card operations by banks showing pre-tax net earnings of 3.66% of outstanding balances in 2003, up from 3.28% in 2002 and 3.24% in 2001.