Deborah Thoren-Peden, a partner at law firm Pillsbury Winthrop, discusses some of the hidden legal risks associated with various forms of prepaid cards.

Jeff Staples reports in Contactless News on "A (Contactless) Day in the Life".

VeriSign reports that this year the Monday following Thanksgiving was a busier day for ecommerce retailers than the traditional Black Friday immediately following Thanksgiving.

"VeriSign's latest data indicates that the Monday following Thanksgiving has replaced Black Friday as the most popular shopping day online. In fact, this year the number of purchases made on Monday was 71 percent higher than Friday," said Trevor Healy, vice president, payment services,

Boston Globe columnist Stephen Syre looks at the Internet retailing phenomenon as it matures this year.

"I think we've all intuitively believed the multichannel guys were the ones who would win in the long run," says Ken Cassar, at Nielsen/NetRatings. "With the exception of eBay and Amazon, that's the case."

The Wall St. Journal has a special section today on small business financing -- including a report on the use of credit cards.

"The issue is that almost all credit-card agreements have fine print with very sharp teeth," says Fred Wainwright, executive director of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "If you miss even one payment, the attractive terms can convert to over 20% annual interest rates and outrageously high penalty fees."

MasterCard has announced that credit card authorization transactions over its BankNet network during the Thanksgiving weekend (through Saturday evening) totaled 64.2 million, an increase of 9.29% over the same period last year. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, MasterCard processed over 35.1 million transactions, a 10.1% growth over the 31.8 million authorization transactions it handled on the same day in 2003.

Separately, Bloomberg reports that the National Retail Federation claims that US retailers' sales during the four day Thanksgiving weekend totaled $22.8 billion.

Business Week's Justin Hibbard profiles the progress that card issuer Providian has made under CEO Joe Saunders over the last four years and speculates about the potential sale of the company to the likes of Barclays, JP Morgan Chase or Citigroup.

Another article in this week's Business Week looks at the pressures on big banks that may slow down banks' earnings growth.

Bruce Mohl reports in the Boston Globe about some issues with bank-issued (as opposed to retailer-issued) gift cards.   » Continue Reading

Jennifer Alsever writes in the New York Times about Gifts for Online Bill Payers. More businesses are out to convert die-hard check writers to electronic billing by offering perks, lower interest rates or discounted prices.

Visa USA has reported that sales volume on so-called Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year, totaled more than $4.1 billion, up 15.5 percent compared to the same day last year. Ecommerce sales have grown at a 32 percent increase since November 1st this year as compared to last.   » Continue Reading

Ross Wehner of the Denver Post profiles Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity.

Bloomberg reports on comments made by Queen Elizabeth II in her annual speech to Parliament laying out the plans of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government. In her comments she indicated that the government is planning to reform consumer credit rules for the first time in 30 years.

The BBC has more on this story.

Fiserv has announced that it is in negotiations with three of Australia's largest banks -- Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corporation -- to manage the operations of a proposed check processing joint venture.

Robin Sidel and Ann Davis report in the Wall St. Journal on what's ahead for Discover.

"Over the last couple of years, we focused on credit quality versus growth. Now we're focusing on both and continuing to invest in marketing to grow our portfolio," says Roger Hochschild, president and chief operating officer of Discover, which is based in Riverwoods, Ill.

IDG's Paul Roberts surveys the technologies that aim to curb online identity theft.

Monica Soto Ouchi reports in the Seattle Times on the expected growth in gift card giving this holiday season.

Jon Ortiz reports on the same story in this morning's Sacramento Bee.

Entrust has introduced IdentityGuard, a very lightweight (paper based) approach to two factor user authentication.

With Entrust IdentityGuard, users continue to employ their current user name and password, but are also provided with a second physical form of authentication based on an assortment of characters in a row/column format printed on a card. A user must successfully complete a coordinate challenge to demonstrate that they are in possession of the appropriate card.

PBS' Frontline aired its show Secret History of the Credit Card earlier this week. The Frontline web site has additional resources on the topic including a transcript of the show.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has just posted a series of talks from a national conference held earlier this year focusing on immigrant access to financial markets and services.

The November issue of the Smart Card Talk newsletter from the Smart Card Alliance has an article for merchants on implementing contactless payment.   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced that it expects 2004 global ecommerce sales volume to exceed US$150 billion by the end of 2004, a 56 percent increase over the US$96 billion in sales volume last year.   » Continue Reading

Using transaction data from prior years, MasterCard recommends shopping on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays this holiday season.

"The common myth among Americans is that 'Black Friday,' which is what the industry calls the day after Thanksgiving, is the busiest shopping day of the season," explains Manchisi. "However, as busy as Black Friday can be, there are other very busy times in the month of December. Typically, at MasterCard, we have processed nearly 33 million transactions on each of the two Saturdays before Christmas -- almost a million more than on the day after Thanksgiving."

Fleet card provider Wright Express has announced it has filed to go public in a spinout from parent Cendant Corporation. The company filed an S-1 Registration Statement yesterday with the SEC.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group has announced the availability of its October report (PDF). The report indicates that phishers are increasingly using compromised broadband-connected PC's to host phishing sites.

Separately, an article in ComputerWeekly.com reports that UK banks are looking at trials of web browser toolbars designed to counter phishing.

Also, MailFrontier has an online quiz you can take to test how good you are at identifying phishing emails.

Linda Lipp writes in the Fort Wayne News Sentinel about gift card fees -- saying "don't get blitzed by gift card fees this year."

The December issue of Consumer Reports Money Advisor newsletter warns that the built-in fees on some cards can eat up most, if not all, of a card’s value, however.

ComputerWorld's Lucas Mearian interviews Jerry McElhatton, retiring head of MasterCard's global technology and operations.

Fast food retailer Jack in the Box has announced the introduction of Jack Cash, its new reloadable stored value card program.   » Continue Reading

The US Department of Commerce on Friday published its estimate of US retail ecommerce sales for the third quarter of 2004. Ecommerce sales in the quarter were estimated to be $17.6 billion, an increase of 21.5 percent over the same quarter in 2003. Total retail sales increased 6.2 percent to a total of $916.5 billion in the quarter. Ecommerce in the third quarter represented 1.8% of total retail sales. The Department's figures do not include travel, financial services or event ticket sales.

Note that the Department's estimate does not include eBay's gross merchandise volume which was $8.3 billion in the third quarter. If eBay's GMV was included, ecommerce would represent 2.2% of total retail sales.

The Federal Reserve has issued a report to Congress on the disclosure of point-of-sale debit fees (PDF).   » Continue Reading

IBM executive Sean Rush writes about phishing in a op-ed piece for the Boston globe.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden talks with Frontline reporter Lowell Bergman about The Secret History of the Credit Card, a documentary by PBS and The New York Times. The documentary airs on PBS stations this Tuesday evening.

Bob Tedeschi reports in the New York Times on eBay's catalog mailing.

EBay's mass mailing is an example of the growing use of catalogs among online retailers, who see their Web sites as strong for taking orders but weak in reaching new customers, especially those who are not frequent Internet shoppers.

An article by Dan Atkinson from the UK speculates that electronic smart tags may start being embedded in currency over the next few years.

Patrick McGeehan reports in the New York Times on the impact that increasing credit card interest rates have on consumers.

To some cardholders and consumer advocates, credit card companies are acting like modern-day loan sharks, strong-arming their customers to pay more - with no legal limit on how much they can charge.

Barrons this weekend has a story about the turnaround at NTT DoCoMo (subscription reqd). Of particular note are the comments about DoCoMo's addition of FeliCa chip technology from Sony to several new DoCoMo phones. The article goes on to report on speculation by Merrill Lynch analyst Yasumasa Goda who thinks that DoCoMo may enter the consumer finance business directly by buying a credit-card company.

Explains Rob Marano, a telecom consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers: "Telcos have better relationships with customers than banks do. This is an established high-frequency, high-transaction relationship."

Brian Krebs continues his series in the Washington Post about the impact that phishing attacks are having.

The Motley Fool's Elizabeth Brokamp writes about her personal experience with a phishing attack.

An editorial in this morning's Atlanta Journal-Constitution comments on the upcoming availability of consumer credit reports as required by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA).

On Tuesday, the three major credit reporting companies — Experian, TransUnion and Atlanta-based Equifax — will announce the Web site that consumers will be able to use as of Dec. 1. Access to reports from all three companies will be possible from the single site. Consumers will be able to call up their reports online, so there will be no waiting for a copy in the mail.

Allstate Insurance has introduced a new Identity Theft Expenses coverage to its New York customers.   » Continue Reading

Vnunet.com's Daniel Thomas interviews RSA Security CEO Art Coviello.

Devices such as SecureID have a lot of marketing potential. If you think about the credit card industry, first everyone wanted a credit card. Then they wanted a gold card and then a platinum one, but now there's a black card. The same thing can be done with two-factor devices.

America West has announced the America West gift card -- the first airline gift card. America West worked with Stored Value Systems to create and market the card.

Washington Post writer Brian Krebs reports on the effects of phishing attacks in the first of a two-part series on phishing.

"Basically every piece of personal data about me had been compromised," Jackson said. "It's pretty simple to get another credit card number and [e-mail] address and switch banks, but what do you do when these guys know the stuff that doesn't change?"

Washington Mutual held an Investor Day in New York City yesterday. The presentations are available online.

Checkfree has released the results of a survey conducted by Lieberman Research that found that Americans fit into six categories when it comes to attitudes about paying their bills.   » Continue Reading

It's easy on the surface to see the benefits of a nationwide retail bank that offers consumers a consistent set of products and services. But as Mel Duvall writes in this Baseline article, digesting several decades of acquisitions is a tough problem for Bank of America to solve.

The BBC reports that a phishing attack against NatWest has resulted in the bank suspending some of its online banking functions.

Jennifer Saranow reports in the Wall St. Journal on research by Javelin Strategy & Research that ranked 40 banks on their online identity theft prevention, detection and resolution services.

The study found that no major bank offers to send its customers alerts when there are changes to credit bureau information, and many don't offer e-mail alerts when unusual account activity occurs or when personal information on file at the bank -- such as a phone number, or personal identification number for a bank card -- has been changed.

Frontline and the New York Times have joined forces to examine the credit card industry in Secret History of the Credit Card to be aired Tuesday, November 23, at 9 PM on PBS.

According to Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the credit card companies are misleading consumers and making up their own rules. "These guys have figured out the best way to compete is to put a smiley face in your commercials, a low introductory rate, and hire a team of MBAs to lay traps in the fine print," Warren tells FRONTLINE.

Heise Online reports on testing by the Fraunhofer Institute of German bank websites and their protection against phishing attacks.

Wells Fargo has announced the introduction of a new account-to-account money transfer service for its customers.

Currently, Wells Fargo is one of relatively few large financial institutions offering a service that can move funds between consumer accounts in real-time. This new capability represents a giant step toward reducing the number of paper checks exchanged between individuals, saving customers the time they would have otherwise spent visiting a store or ATM.

Wells Fargo's new service was developed in direct response to input from customers on their money transfer needs. The bank's research showed that a very significant portion of its customer base moves money between account holders. Close to half the people surveyed by Wells Fargo indicated a strong interest in the new money transfer service.

ZDNet UK reports on a speech by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in Copenhagen where he commented on the weakness of passwords.

"Unfortunately with the type of critical information on these systems, we aren't going to be able to rely on passwords. Moving to biometric and smart cards is a wave that is coming and we see our leading customers doing this."

Cyota reports its anti-phishing command center is seeing a surge in new phishing attacks against financial institutions not previously targeted.   » Continue Reading

eFunds has announced that it is partnering with WildCard Systems to deliver a single source for both EFT and stored value processing capabilities.   » Continue Reading

Discover Financial Services has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the PULSE EFT Association for a purchase price of $311 million.   » Continue Reading

American Express today filed a lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard and eight major bank members of the card associations including J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Capital One, U.S. Bancorp, Household Bank, Wells Fargo, Providian National Bank and USAA Federal Savings Bank.

Amex's complaint is available for downloading online (PDF).

American Express has announced its intention to file private litigation against Visa and MasterCard. Amex says David Boies, founding partner of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, will serve as American Express' lead outside counsel in the matter. A teleconference to provide more details will take place at 11 AM EST this morning.   » Continue Reading

US Bank has announced an arrangement with Boston Communications Group to offer prepaid wireless top-up at US Bank's nearly 4,000 ATMs.   » Continue Reading

Frost and Sullivan has completed a new analysis of the world smart card market.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (www.smartcards.frost.com), World Banking (Financial and Loyalty) Smart Card Market, reveals that revenues in this market totaled $453.3 million in 2003 and are projected to reach $1196.3 million in 2008.

Gregory Lamb writes in the Christian Science Monitor about using mobile phones as wallets for commerce.

The idea of using mobile phones as vehicles for commerce has been around for years. But this year it finally seems to be getting some traction as major players agree on standards.

The Melbourne Herald Sun reports on a new MasterCard prepaid card program being launched by technology company Emerchants.

Technology firm Emerchants has arisen as one of the first non-bank financial service providers able to use Mastercard's Maestro and Cirrus brands for the stored value cards, which are expected to grow in popularity as a cost-saving alternative to credit cards.

The Korea Herald reports on the battle between Visa and MasterCard with respect to the smart card technologies for use in Korea.

Chang said MasterCard's smart-card operating system, MULTOS, better serves the main purposes of a smart card, such as better security, compared to the JAVA platform adopted by Visa.

Madhusmita Bora reports in the Indianapolis Star on shoppers being warned not to increase their credit card debt.

"Credit-card burdens and delinquency in credit-card payments are at an all-time high," said Niranjan Pati, business school dean at Indiana University Kokomo. "Card purchases should be the last resort at the time of shopping for the holidays. Follow the time-honored adage, 'Cut your coat according to your cloth.' "

The Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) in the UK says that after consumers have been advised of online risks such as phishing, they may stop providing refunds to those customers who have safety information but ignore it.   » Continue Reading

The Weekend Australian reports on the debit card market in Australia and a new marketing push by Visa.

Kristen Millares Bolt reports in the Seattle Post-Intellligencer on gift cards.

Gift cards as a modern method for spreading holiday cheer may not have been what St. Nick had in mind when he first began loading up his sleigh, but it's going to allow people to stuff their own stockings. It's a sure bet walnuts and oranges won't be rounding out the toe.

eWeek reports on a surge in phishing attacks against banks that began on Veterans Day.

MSN Money carries a Bankrate.com story about how to take advantage of some of the current credit card balance transfer offers to get a one year, interest free loan.   » Continue Reading

VeriFone has announced that it is teaming with McAfee to jointly develop the industry's first virus protection solution addressing point-of-sale payment terminals.   » Continue Reading

The Guardian reports on the UK Office of Fair Trading's investigation of credit card interchange fees.   » Continue Reading

The New Zealand Herald reports on investigations into credit card fees in New Zealand.

The Scotsman reports on action by the UK's Office of Fair Trading announcing an inquiry into Visa and issuing a last-chance warning to MasterCard regarding interchange fees. The OFT's press release on the matter is available online.

Deloitte and Touche's Holiday Consumer Survey this year ranks gift cards as the gift purchase of choice, replacing apparel.   » Continue Reading

Unisys has announced consumer research results that found that nearly half of US households would be willing to switch their accounts to financial institutions that offer stronger identity theft protection and alert services. The study also reported that one in five US households -- more than 21 million -- have been directly affected by identity theft.   » Continue Reading

Chase announced today that it is sponsoring Amazon.com's new Amazon Theatre.

"Amazon Theater brings the silver screen to consumers' computer screens and discounts and rewards to Amazon.com Platinum Visa(a) cardmembers' wallets. The program also gives Chase an innovative way to market its payment products to Amazon.com's tens of millions of customers during the holiday season when traffic is highest."

American Express has announced an agreement with Microsoft's MSN to deliver free music downloads through the MSN Music Service to American Express cardholders in the US.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced the results of their SecureCode Holiday Shopping Survey conducted by Harris Interactive.   » Continue Reading

The BBC reported last Friday on an investigation of a major security breach at Abbey Bank's Cahoot online banking website. The issue involved "a loophole which meant customers could log in to other people's accounts using just a user-name and bypassing any security information."

In late September, GE Consumer Finance Americas President and CEO Mark Begor spoke at an investor conference. The slides from his presentation are available online (PDF) and provide some great insights into the business strategies GECF is pursuing.

Checkfree Software has announced a new payer verification capability for checks that uses image capture technology to pull payee names off of check images. The new capability allows banks to identify altered or unmatched payee paid exception items. If the results conclude the check has been changed or added to, it is rejected as an exception and may be presented to the company for a "pay" or "return" decision with no loss to the customer or the bank.

Visa USA has reported the results of its second annual cash management survey which showed that more than half (51 percent) of financial executives surveyed plan to reduce their organization's reliance on the use of checks for commercial payments. Forty percent of respondents indicated they intend to increase their use of commercial payment cards instead.   » Continue Reading

Don Olderburg reports in the Washington Post on the rise in phishing emails -- and consumers who are learning not to take the bait.

Visa USA has announced that spending on Visa branded payment cards during the first week of November 2004 rose to $22 billion, an increase of 15.7% over the same week last year.

Consumer spending on Visa branded credit cards surpassed $10.8 billion while debit spending reached more than $9 billion, a 5.8 and 28.7 percent increase from the same period in 2003, respectively.   » Continue Reading

The Electronic Payments Network has announced a minimum remittance information standard, EPN 820, intended to improve the straight through processing for business-to-business payments.

Fundtech has announced that it plans to support the new Minimum Remittance Information Standard in its next software release.

S1 has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Mosaic Software Holdings for $37 million in cash at closing and up to an additional $15 million in earn-out payments based upon Mosaic's financial performance through May 2005.   » Continue Reading

Teresa Lindeman reports in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the use of gift cards.

Laurie Sullivan reports in Information Week on the growing usage of Verified by Visa.

DMNews also reports on Verified by Visa.

The BBC reports on plans by Nokia to trial in Germany a proximity-based bus ticketing system that would allow riders to pay by waving their cell phone in front of a reader installed on buses.

Patrick Collinson reports in the Guardian that the number of individuals in the UK going bankrupt has hit a record high.

During the third quarter of 2004, 11,967 people were declared insolvent, up 31% on the same quarter a year ago, according to figures from the Department of Trade and Industry. Experts placed the blame on soaring credit card debt, with the typical bankrupt owing £50,000 on a variety of cards.

Government Computer News reports that the National Institute of Standards and Technology is preparing a new Federal Information Processing Standard for an interoperable government-wide ID card. FIPS 201 is expected to be released for comment on November 8th.   » Continue Reading

Seth Lubove writes for Forbes about the fees immigrants pay for remittances to relatives back home, particularly to FDC's Western Union.   » Continue Reading

The US Federal Reserve reported today that US consumer revolving credit grew at an annualized rate of 10 percent in September -- from $742.1 to $748.3 billion.

Wells Fargo Bank has announced a new consumer remittance service between the US and the Philippines. The new service is an account-to-ATM service that allows customers to send up to US$3,000 per day. Funds are available the next business day for pick-up at a network of over 4,000 ATMs in the Philippines. Receiving parties can withdraw up to US$400 per day using pre-sent ATM cards. Wells Fargo is charging $8 per deposit for the new service.   » Continue Reading

Forbes carries an AP story this morning on MBNA beginning its rollout of American Express-branded cards.

More details available from this MBNA press release.

Consumer response to initial pre-selling activities for the MBNA Affinity Rewards American Express Cards has been overwhelmingly positive. To date, MBNA has already issued more than 300,000 American Express-branded cards. Early consumer demand for these cards demonstrates clearly that customers want richer rewards on a product that represents their membership in an affinity organization.

ZDnet UK reports on comments by RSA Security's Andrew Nash in Barcelona regarding the threats of phishing and other issues affecting confidence in use of the Internet.

Mitchell Pacelle reports in this morning's Wall St. Journal in a page one story about subprime card issuer Cross Country Bank and the bank's CEO Rocco Abessinio.   » Continue Reading

US Dataworks and Montreal-based Othenik Technologies have announced they have formed an alliance to bring Othenik's credit push technology to the US market.   » Continue Reading

Next Estate Communications, in partnership with Columbus Bank and Trust, has launched WebSecret, an online buying product designed to "protect consumers from identity theft and improper use of their personal information."   » Continue Reading

Michael Singer reports on InternetNews.com about PayPal's posting to hire a mobile payments product manager.

VeriFone, Mosaic Software and ID Data have announced LaunchPAD, an alliance to deliver pre-authorized debit (PAD) transactions.   » Continue Reading

The Globe and Mail is reporting today on the results of a study conducted by Visa Canada that reports that as many as 200,000 Canadians may have been unwittingly victimized in phishing attacks.

Visa Canada declared yesterday "Anti-Phishing" day as part of a public relations effort to increase consumer awareness of the issue. The full Visa Canada press release on phishing is available online along with a consumer brochure (PDF) on the subject.

Wells Fargo Bank and S1 Corporation have announced a new service that will allow banks to provide a full range of online foreign exchange services under a bank's own brand name.   » Continue Reading

CyberSource has announced that Overstock.com has extended its processing relationship including adding Bill Me Later acceptance.   » Continue Reading

Bank of America held an investor meeting in Boston yesterday to present the bank's strategy for doing business with consumer customers coast to coast. A webcast and the presentation slides from the meeting are available online.

WAY Systems has announced that Visa International has completed an equity investment in the company as part of a strategic alliance announced earlier this year.   » Continue Reading

Richard K. Davis, president and chief operating officer of U.S. Bancorp, announced today that Pam Joseph has been named chairman, president and chief executive officer of its merchant payment processing subsidiary, NOVA Information Systems replacing Ed Grzedzinski.

Jennifer Saranow writes in the Wall St. Journal about banks owned by non-banks offering banking services to their customers -- including Volkswagen Bank/Audi Bank, Toyota Financial Services, GMAC Bank, BMW Bank, and Nordstrom Federal Savings Bank.

Paul Roberts of IDG News Service reports on bank usage of strong authentication technologies to authenticate their online customers.

"The good guys can't keep up with the bad guys," said Litan of Gartner. "What we need is some kind of caller ID for the Internet. Someone has to stand behind Web sites and say, 'This is John Doe.' And right now nobody does that."

Cloudmark has introduced the CloudMark SafetyBar, an anti-phishing solution based upon its earlier SpamNet toolbar.   » Continue Reading

Lavonne Kuykendall reports in the American Banker this morning on changes Visa USA is making to PIN and signature debit card interchange fees.