Xoom has announced the launch of its money transfer service to Mexico and a partnership with HSBC for pickup at any of its 1,300 locations.

“We understand that people work hard for their money and we are excited to launch our safe, cost effective and convenient service to Mexico. HSBC is a terrific partner and is certain to offer our recipients in Mexico the best possible money transfer experience.”, said James Joaquin, Xoom’s President and CEO.

American Express and USAA have announced an agreement to offer American Express and USAA-branded charge and credit cards in the US. USAA will be the card issuer and manage customer relationships, credit management and customer service. The first cards are expected to be issued in the second quarter of 2006.

Separately, American Express announced that it had dismissed USAA from its antitrust litigation against Visa, MasterCard and a number of major US banks.   » Continue Reading

United Airlines and Chase announced today a new United Mileage Plus Platinum Class Signature Visa card.   » Continue Reading

The US Government Accountability Office on Friday released a report on the use of RFID technology by the federal government.

The use of the technology, however, raises several security and privacy considerations that may affect federal agencies’ decisions to implement the technology. Key security issues include protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data and information systems. The privacy issues include notifying consumers; tracking an individual’s movements; profiling an individual’s habits, tastes, and predilections; and allowing for secondary uses of information.

• Fiserv Signs 49 De Novo Banks and Thrifts to Core Processing Agreements in Past 12 Months
• Wachovia Launches Interactive Identity Theft Quiz
• KeyCorp Adds the MoneyPass Network to Its Growing Agent Bank ATM Program Dashen Bank and ACI Introduce Visa Cards to Ethiopia
• Dexit Appoints Chief Operating Officer
• TriCipher Adds to Patent Portfolio With New Password Protection Technology
• WSJ: Stolen PC Had Credit-Card Data For 80,000 Government Workers
• PayPal Launches Local Service in Spain
• Federal ID Act May Be Flawed
• Bank of America to use two-factor system to beat phishers
• ASROC Alternative Payment Processing Conference to be Held June 27-28 in London

Vauhini Vara writes for the Wall St. Journal about the latest tools banks are using against identity theft and online bank fraud.

Stanford Federal Credit Union, a small bank on the Stanford University campus, uses a validation system similar to the one that Bank of America will implement.

Both are designed by the same company, Redwood City, Calif.-based PassMark Security Inc., founded by former Intuit Inc. and PayPal chief executive Bill Harris.

Doug Crets reports from Hong Kong for The Standard regarding new requirements by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to require that banks move to two-factor authentication for online banking access beginning next month.

The Authority's press release announcing the move is available online as well as the text of a brief speech on the subject of two-factor authentication by Mr William Ryback, Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

“Two-factor authentication further strengthens the security controls of Internet banking and protects bank customers from Internet banking frauds," said Mr William Ryback, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA.

“Hong Kong is one of the first places amongst the developed financial markets to establish such a regulatory requirement which enables Internet banking to continue to flourish under a safe and sound environment."

Ling Liu writes for the San Francisco Chronicle from Shanghai exploring online auctions in China.

Unlike in the United States, where eBay is the clear leader in the online auction business, the company has considerable competition in China. In 2003, the popular Chinese business-to-business Web portal Alibaba.com started Taobao.com, a consumer auction site and eBay's biggest rival. In April 2004, Yahoo China paired up with the Chinese web portal Sina to start 1pai.com, another consumer auction site, but it lags far behind market leaders eBay and Taobao.

• Reuters reports on a Barron's story this weekend about speculation that MBNA might be acquired by Wachovia
• Australia: Banks need to know fees on internet transactions are not acceptable
• Debit card gives kids lesson in accountability

Business Week reports on NTT DoCoMo's plans to enable cell handsets to be used as credit cards.

After introducing handsets last year that double as debit cards -- allowing users to pay for small purchases such as soda or coffee from vending machines and convenience stores -- the company this year plans to make those phones full-fledged credit cards.

The Tennessean.com looks at Nashville-based Comdata and CEO Gary Krow.

Comdata was founded in Nashville 36 years ago and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ceridian Corp. It has 1,200 employees and has expanded beyond the trucking industry, where it was well-known for its payment cards for fuel. It is a leading distributor of gift cards and has taken that product into other countries. And it also is the largest payroll card provider in the industry.

• Thailand: MasterCard seeks higher local profile
• Monitoring debit cards can protect against theft
• New AmEx card takes place of traditional travelers checks
• Korea: GE Consumer Finance, Hyundai to Form Partnership

Jenny Strasburg reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on the growth in online banking.

But for every Internet-banking disciple out there, at least one holdout vows never to bank online, recent industry research shows. Many nonusers say they're skittish about personal privacy and the security of their financial data, concerns that pose barriers to banks competing to lure business to the Internet.

• Bank of America's SiteKey scrutinized
• Debt can leave graduates hanging by a thread
• UK: Barclays: Bad credit card is rising

Visa International estimates that Visa cardholders from around the world are likely to spend about US$25 billion in China over the next five years. For the year ending March 2005, Visa cardholders spent $2.1 billion in China, an 83 percent growth year over year.

But merchant acceptance of plastic card payments remains a challenge in China.   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced the appointment of Terence "Terry" V. Milholland as executive vice president and chief technology office reporting to Visa International president and CEO Christopher J. Rodrigues. Most recently, Milholland served as CIO/CTO for Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) and previously held the post of CIO at Boeing Company.   » Continue Reading

• Several credit-card issuers are raising minimum payments
• Asia Pay Announces Completion of APAYcard Transaction Processing Platform for Use in China
• China: David X. Wang Leads SWIFT Solutions Workshop
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A new way to send cash to Mexico: Directo a Mexico
• Visa Survey Reveals 68 Percent of Government Agencies Identify Automation as Key for Improving Procure-to-Pay Process
• New Chairman of Visa Asia/Pacific
• China Daily: Visa backs plastic payments
• GE Money Marks One-Year Serving European Customers

Bank of America this morning announced the launch of a new protection service called SiteKey that helps confirm a customer's identification online.

Bank customers can sign up for the service for free. Customers pick an image, write a brief phrase and select three challenge questions. The customer and the bank can pass that information securely back and forth to confirm each other’s identity.   » Continue Reading

Discover Financial Services and China UnionPay have announced they have entered into a strategic alliance that will lead to acceptance of Discover Network Cards at China UnionPay ATMs and point-of-sale terminals in China and acceptance of China UnionPay cards on the PULSE network in the U.S. Both also agreed to pursue ways to enable acceptance of China UnionPay cards at Discover Network's more than four million merchant and cash access locations in North America.   » Continue Reading

Ron Lieber reports for the Wall St. Journal on yesterday's announcement of the new American Express / Delta Air Lines SkyPoints credit card. The card gives customers a choice of earning discounts or miles for Delta flights.

People using the card earn a new frequent-flier currency called SkyPoints, which they can trade in for the airline discounts. The card also allows cardholders who don't want discounts to trade their SkyPoints for Delta frequent-flier miles.

• Commerce Insurance Services is Nation's First Agency to Give Customers Visa Extras Rewards Points
• Creative Payment Solutions Selects Panini North America Image Capture Device
• Study Your Statement: Checking Account Customers Pay More Than $10 Billion a Year for Overdraft Loans
• Dexit Launches Automatic Credit Card Refill Option
• Georgia Federal Credit Union Teams With Identity Theft 911 to Protect Members
• 'Get Serious' on Best Practices for Overdraft Programs, Legal Expert Tells C.U. and Banking Executives
• UK: Credit cards spoil the Barclays' party
• ID cards: Biometrics work... sort of
• GSI Commerce Prices Public Offering of Common Shares and Convertible Notes
• TCF Launching New Prepaid Travel Money Card From American Express
• MSN Money: Debit cards too risky for big purchases
• Hackers break into Stanford University
• Passwords are history as school rolls-out fingerprint registration
• Wachovia rethinks credit-card strategy

The Center for Financial Services Innovation has released a new research paper titled "Retailers as Financial Services Providers: The Potential and Pitfalls of This Burgeoning Distribution Channel" (PDF).

The report, authored by CFSI's Senior Analyst, Katy Jacob, assesses the business and policy implications for both the financial services and retail industry as banks and retailers both partner and compete with each other in their efforts to provide financial services via retail locations.

MasterCard has announced that it is holding its third annual Stored Value Forum today and tomorrow.

"Long gone are the days when prepaid was solely synonymous with long distance calls or store-bought gift certificates. Today prepaid cards are mainstream financial products applicable to virtually every type of transaction, in virtually every payment category, including consumer, business, and the public sector," said Ted Dargan, Vice President, Stored Value Team Lead for the Americas, MasterCard International.

"Prepaid cards can take on cash and checks where traditional credit or debit card programs may not fit the payment need. We estimate that the prepaid opportunity in the U.S. alone is more than $2.5 trillion."

Jennifer Tescher and Katy Jacob write for Banking Strategies on bank use of stored value card products.

Alternative financial services providers tout stored value cards (SVCs) as the “un-bank account” to lure underbanked consumers who are turned off by — or have been turned away from — traditional banks. But as banks focus on the potential value of underbanked consumers, they are finding that SVCs can be a potent tool to initiate, extend and enrich their customer relationships, transforming SVCs from a niche product into one with broader appeal.

Eileen Alt Powell reports for AP on a study released yesterday by college lender Nellie Mae that said the percentage of undergraduate students with credit cards in 2004 was 76 percent as compared to 83 percent in 2001.

They carried an average of four cards last year, and their outstanding balances averaged a total of $2,169. While a seemingly hefty number, that was down significantly from $2,327 in 2001 and $2,748 in 2000, though up from the $1,879 average balance of 1998, according to study.

• American Express and Delta Introduce The SkyPoints(TM) Credit Card, Making Delta and Song(R) Airfares Even Lower
• MSNBC: Online banking usage soars
• Federal Reserve Banks Announce Changes to Increase Efficiency in Check Services
• Standard for B2B Electronic Payments to Be Offered In Leading Accounting Solutions Provided by NexTec Group
• Columbitech Offers End-to-End Wireless VPN Solution to Address Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards
• Sheetz to Accept Visa Contactless Payments at the Point of Sale; New Payment Technology Allows Customers to Complete Secure Transactions Faster and Easier
• Early Indicators Point to Increased Summer Travel in 2005 with Americans Capitalizing on Lower Airline and Rental Costs, According to Visa USA
• Teros and Corillian Join Forces to Thwart Phishing Attacks and ID Theft
• Asia Pay Announces Director Benny Lee to Join Management Team in China
• Iraq Gets Its First Credit Cards; ATM Network Is on the Way
• Digital Insight Implements New Security Protocol to Assist Client Financial Institutions With Reduction of Spam, E-Fraud

Terri Cullen reports for the Wall St. Journal on the vulnerabilities of Social Security numbers.

Face it, your Social Security number is vulnerable. While there's a temptation to throw up your hands and hope for the best, you shouldn't give into it. Until government steps in to protect Social Security numbers, it's up to consumers to do what they can to keep track of their information.

Chase has announced that Atlanta will be the first U.S. market to receive the new Chase credit card with contactless functionality called blink. On its web site, Chase has provided a list of merchants (PDF) who will be accepting contactless card payments in the Atlanta area.   » Continue Reading

David Enrich reports in the Wall St. Journal on new card technologies involving dynamic card numbers.

The next generation of credit and debit cards is squarely aimed at fighting theft and fraud. These cards will run on paper-thin batteries and feature liquid-crystal-display screens that frequently generate fresh card numbers. The theory is that oft-changing card numbers will be useless to thieves who intercept Internet transactions or get access to databases of card numbers.

MSNBC's Technology Correspondent Bob Sullivan reports on check fraud perpetrated using demand drafts (often called "remotely created checks") instead of real, personally signed checks.

What's needed to create a demand draft? Simply the account number and bank routing number — information found on every single check. Write a check to your 12-year-old babysitter, and she has all the information she would need to clean out your account.

In order to help reduce the potential for fraud, the proposed amendments to Regulation CC would create transfer and presentment warranties under which the depositary bank would warrant that the remotely created check that it is transferring or presenting to the paying bank is authorized by the person on whose account the check is drawn. The proposed warranties would apply only to banks and would ultimately shift liability for losses attributable to an unauthorized remotely created check from the paying bank to the depositary bank.

• Intervoice Continues Fight Against Identity Theft with Announcement of New Authentication Packaged Application
• Mercury Payment Systems Combines Value-Added Services with Faster Integrated Transaction Processing; MercuryPay Platform Processes Transactions
• Furniture First Now Offering Private Label Credit Card Program Through Wells Fargo Financial Retail Services
• Wachovia Wins 2005 Brandweek Customer Loyalty Award
• Acxiom Announces Relationship With Juniper Bank To Support Marketing Initiatives, Enhance Analytics Platform
• ACI Helping Network International Become First Multi-Application Smart Card Provider in Middle East
• S1 and Edify Help Financial Institutions Improve Customer Service with Enhanced Voice Banking Solution
• Pay By Touch Appoints Senior IBM Executive as President and Chief Operating Officer
• VeriFone's MX870 Brings Multi-Media to Multi-Lane Payments
• Hypercom's Optimum Joins Visa Smart Breakthrough Acceptance Device Program, Accelerating Move to EMV Migration
• Terri Dial, Ex-Wells Fargo retail CEO to head Lloyds TSB in UK
• InternetPerils Online Visualization Technology Actively Tracks and Pinpoints Phishing Websites
• Honolulu Cancels Bus Smart Card Program
• Bank security breach may be biggest yet
• GE Money Bank (Germany) to Use Digipass 250 for Secure Online Retail Banking

Mylene Mangalindan reports for the Wall St. Journal on a study of online retail sales sponsored by Shop.org and conducted by Forrester Research. The study concluded that U.S. online retail sales should climb 22% to $172 billion this year with the largest category of online sales, travel, projected to grow 20%, to $62.8 billion while the other categories are projected to reach $109.6 billion this year -- estimated to represent about 5.5% of all retail sales in the US.

NOVA Information Systems, the merchant acquiring subsidiary of US Bank, has announced an agreement to acquire Certegy's existing merchant acquiring portfolio consisting of 14,000 merchant locations representing about $3 billion in annual credit and debit card processing volume.

As part of the deal, NOVA has agreed to sell Certegy's regional check products and Certegy has agreed to provide NOVA with new merchant referrals through its sales representatives.

For 2004, NOVA processed about $119 billion in credit and debit card volume (according to the Nilson Report) from over 650,000 merchants.   » Continue Reading

Donald Greenlees reports on the state of electronic payments in China for the International Herald Tribune.

As China prepares to play host to a number of big global events like the Olympics and the World's Fair in Shanghai in 2010, it is scrambling to put an adequate electronic payments system in place.

Despite staggering growth rates in the spread of debit and credit cards in recent years, the domestic network to allow customers and merchants to trade in plastic, rather than cash, is both patchy and unreliable.

First Data Corp.'s TeleCheck unit has announced that it has linked with a sister division, the Star Network, and its STAR CHEK Direct service.   » Continue Reading

Credit Card Management has published its annual Bank Card Profitability Study and Annual Report.

The exclusive study found that large issuers posted a collective after-tax return on assets of 3.7%, up from 2.5% in 2003. The issuers earned $21.44 billion last year, a 51% jump from $14.24 billion in 2003. Issuers were blessed with low funding costs, greater consumer use of plastic and timelier payments from cardholders. Issuers sought to expand their markets, stepping up their mailing of card offers and moving into new merchant sectors such as the $125 billion quick service restaurant arena.

Eric Dash reported for the New York Times on Saturday on credit card issuers not reporting credit limit information for consumers to credit bureaus, potentially affecting consumers' credit scores.

Ratings for an estimated 9.2 million Americans, or about 4.3 percent of the 210 million who have a credit score, were lowered by more than 10 points when information on their credit limit was omitted, according to a national study of more than 250,000 people with credit scores that was published by three Federal Reserve economists last year.

• BlueTarp Financial Name Change Better Reflects Range of Services for Building Materials Industry
• Business Week: Phishers Learn to Exploit VeriSign
• National City Introduces 'Identity Protect' To Help Customers Fight Identity Theft: $8.95/month subscription
• InStorecard, Inc. Changes Name to Loyalty Lab, Inc., announces four new clients, two new programs
• China: Online Shopping Websites Adopt New Payment Method
• Visa International and Fastlink debut new mobile payment service in Jordan
• Survey Reveals Majority of Teens Love to Give, Receive Gift Cards
• Bottomline Technologies Announces Next-Generation Purchase-to-Pay Solution
• Hackers use new tricks to steal IDs
• Debit cards loved by all; be careful
• Voxify Answers the Call for Retail Customer Service
• Miami Herald: Rewards of BofA credit card go beyond miles
• Target marketing via RFID to debut in Seattle
• Australia: Reserve Bank faces challenge to Eftpos rules
• WSJ: Bank of America, Wachovia Lift Estimate Of Stolen Information
• New bank overdraft rule may cut fees for consumers

Ethan Preston is an attorney in Chicago practicing IT security law. In an email to Payments News, he writes:

I've collected some of the pleadings in the PSECU v. BJ's Wholesale case and written them up.

Reuters reports on preliminary figures released Friday by the US Department of Commerce reporting Internet retail sales rose 23.8 percent in the first quarter to $19.8 billion while total retail sales grew 7.3 percent. E-commerce accounted for 2.2 percent of total retail sales in the first quarter. The complete quarterly report along with lots of earlier reports is available online.

David Lazarus writes in the San Francisco Chronicle about legislation introduced last week by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would require credit card issuers to provide additional disclosures regarding monthly payments.

The real bite of the legislation comes in a separate provision. It stipulates that if a customer makes minimum payments for six straight months, the card issuer must offer an individual projection so the cardholder knows exactly how much and how long it'll take to crawl out of debt.

• Givex Gift Card Solutions Now Available On Dinerware POS
• Givex Integrates With SpeedLine POS - Kick-Start to Pizza Chain Gift Cards
• UK: Banks agree to speed up payments

Aleksandra Todorova reports for SmartMoney.com on some of the new incentives that banks are offering to new customers such as Citibanks Apple iPod Shuffle promotion and PNC Bank's Blackberry promotion.Better than toasters!

The BBC reports that the amount of credit card debt outstanding in the UK has fallen for the first time since May 1994. During April, cardholders paid £40m more off their credit card than they spent and over the past six months the rise in new card debt has slowed.

• GE Money Drives Expansion with New Products and Customer Focus
• nCipher helps combat phishing attacks with Chip and PIN
• Technology Leads the Way at Visa - Interview with Visa USA CEO Carl Pascarella
• eGov Monitor: UK Plans Cheap Digital IDs for eGovernment
• Economist: Bank of America Reportedly Invests in China Construction Bank
• Federal Reserve: Remarks by Governor Mark W. Olson At the 2005 Payments Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
• Debit cards relished by crooks, should be kept in safe place
• Asia Pay Announces Quarterly Results
• Enterprise Payment Solution for Banks Outlined by eCommLink CEO

JP Morgan Chase has announced more details of its new contactless card initiative.   » Continue Reading

7-Eleven announced this morning that it will be installing contactless card readers at all of its 5,300 US stores.   » Continue Reading

Leslie Walker writes in today's Washington Post about PayPal's expansion to serve more merchants off of parent company eBay's auction sites.

"No one at my company could get access to those credit card numbers'' " Schuler said. "It is a huge relief to be able to tell customers, 'Your information is secure.' "

While PayPal has its share of problems with fraud and is a huge target for phishers -- crooks who send fake e-mails enticing people to reveal their personal data -- security has turned out to be one of its selling points. Buyers like not having to reveal their credit card numbers to unfamiliar sellers; some also enjoy the convenience of not having to reenter credit card numbers at different Web sites.

The Daily Mail (UK) reports on new credit cards being introduced by some UK issuers that, in exchange for lower interest rates, charge interest on the value of purchases from the date of purchase.

In its quarterly earnings announcement on Tuesday morning, BJ's Wholesale Club announced it was increasing its reserve for claims against it by various credit card banks. The total amount BJ's has reserved is now $10 million.

The charge to increase the company's credit card reserve was driven primarily by an increase in the company's estimate of legal expenses to be incurred. BJ's is vigorously contesting all claims and will continue to explore all possible defenses and all possible claims against others.

• Rand Commentary: Businesses Need Explicit Policies for Using Data from Access Control Cards
• Microsoft preparing InfoCard identity management solution
• Germany's Sparkasse Hannover Purchases NCR's Personas M Series ATMs for Cash Deposit and Cash Recycling Functions
• ISD Announces Second Round of Funding
• Elan Financial Services Forms Partnership with Pacific Coast Bankers Bank
• Wells Fargo Becomes First Major U.S. Bank to Offer Consumer Remittance Service to El Salvador and Guatemala
• International Card Establishment (I.C.E.) Enters Into Processing Agreement with First Data Merchant Services and Fleet National Bank
• Planetwide Games Joins Forces with First Data to Launch Authentication Product for the Video Game Industry
• ING Direct Flies Into Phoenix
• Carreker's Global Payments Consulting Offers Image Exchange Workshop
• First Data to sell $1 bln notes in two parts Thurs
• Bankruptcy judge warns teens of credit card dangers
• Students' credit card debt worries Schumer
• Commentary: South Korean credit crisis offers a lesson for China
• First Data Renews Card Processing Agreement with MABA; Relationship Continues with Processor's Original Customer

Robin Sidel reports for the Wall St. Journal on plans by JP Morgan Chase to issue millions of new credit cards based upon contactless chip technology.

"It's our intent to create this market by issuing millions of cards," says Tom O'Donnell, a senior vice president in J.P. Morgan's credit-card division.

Sidel reports that Chase's announcement of this new card program is scheduled for tomorrow.

Terri Cullen reports for the Wall St. Journal on fixed rate for the life of the loan balance transfer deals being offered by some credit card issuers.

With a typical balance-transfer offer, card issuers allow new customers to transfer balances and pay 0% on the balance for an introductory period, typically six to nine months. But for a "life of the balance" financing deal, cardholders can transfer outstanding balances from high-interest credit cards to a new card and pay a fixed low-rate finance charge until the transferred balance is paid off.

Joseph Rebello and Michael Schroeder report for the Wall St. Journal on comments made to Congress by Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich in which he said that the Fed expects to propose new rules next year for how credit card issuers must disclose financial information to borrowers. Gramlich's testimony is available online.

Regulation Z and its staff commentary have been reviewed and updated almost continuously, but not comprehensively since 1980. In December 2004, the Board began a comprehensive review of Regulation Z, starting with the publication of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) on the rules for open-end credit that is not home-secured, such as general-purpose credit cards.

The goal of the review is to improve the effectiveness and usefulness of open-end disclosures and substantive protections. The public comment period recently closed, and the Board's staff will be carefully reviewing the comment letters as they consider possible changes to the regulations. We also believe that consumer testing should be used to test the effectiveness of any proposed revisions, and anticipate publishing proposed revisions to Regulation Z in 2006.

Jesse Eisinger reports for the Wall St. Journal on how Alliance Data Systems financially reports the transaction processing vs. credit portions of its business.

• H-E-B develops new Visa prepaid card with savings option
• Visa USA says 1Q consumer spending rises
• World's First Published ATM PIN
• Australia: Giant GE picks Wizard strategy
• Technology Veteran Gary Epple Joins Paymetric as Vice President - Development
• Credit First National Association Improves Service Levels with Speech-Enabled Customer Service Applications from Intervoice
• Acies Corporation Appoints Industry Expert Jeffrey D. Klores to its Board of Directors
• S1 and VASCO Team to Deliver Security Solutions to Financial Institutions
• JPMorgan Chase Selects SAP as an Integral Part of Financials Technology Platform
• Remote Corporate Deposits Lead Types of New Products and Services Bankers Seek for 'Check 21' Imaging
• Harvard Credit Card To Fund Fellowships
• Visa in talks for Singapore's national e-payment hub project

Visa USA has announced the final implementation of Visa Direct Exchange.

"In effect, we have completely re-designed the way financial institutions and merchants access Visa services and have created an extremely flexible payment platform," said John Partridge, CEO of Inovant, Visa's technology organization responsible for global processing and technology development.

"Instead of our Members having to conform to our system, we are now flexible enough to conform to their needs, and as a result have drastically reduced implementation time and cost for new payment products and services."

American Express has announced the American Express Travelers Cheque Card.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has released the results of an independent nationwide survey of consumers that found that 6.8 percent of adults have been victimized by identity theft and 43.4 percent of adults have received a phishing contact.

"This new survey confirms that identity theft and phishing are national threats, and that consumers need help to fight back," said Debra Janssen, president, First Data Debit Services.

"Close to 5 percent of phishing attempts are successful, despite significant efforts by the financial community to raise awareness and educate consumers about phishing. It's clear that more remains to be done," Janssen said.

Kevin Delaney reports for the Wall St. Journal on the newest forms of attacks on online consumers to steal their online identities.   » Continue Reading

Catherine McLean writes for Canada's Globe and Mail about Canadian mobile carriers interest in adding a payment wallet to their phones.   » Continue Reading

Pete Barlas writes for Investor's Business Daily about Visa and MasterCard efforts to require e-tailers to upgrade their data security.   » Continue Reading

• HDFC Bank Joins Euronet's Cashnet Shared ATM Network in India
• Asia Pay Announces Launching of Beijing Credit Bureau Pilot Program with Beijing Purple Stars Appraisal
• P&H Solutions: Financial Institutions Increasing Focus on Payments Security; Recent Fraud Incidents Stimulate Interest in Token Authentication Modules
• Motley Fool: Why Take iPayment Private?
• BioPay Announces Age Verification Feature Now Available With Payments
• PayStar Announces $5 Million Financing Commitment
• Carreker and BISYS Announce Alliance to Offer Payment Strategy Consulting

Kirsten Downey writes for the Washington Post on new guidelines from federal banking regulators regarding home equity lending.   » Continue Reading

iPayment announced this morning that Chairman and CEO Greg Daily has offered to acquire all of the outstanding shares of iPayment for $38 per share.

• Turning the Tables on Identity Theft: TableSwipe(TM) Wireless Device Keeps Credit Card Payment in Customer's Hands
• BB&T introduces new payroll card for employers
• Dynamic Solutions International Renames CardWizard Division to Dynamic Card Solutions
• Harvard Alumni Association and the Barclays Group (Juniper Bank) Announce New World Mastercard
• Vigilar Earns MasterCard International Site Data Protection Vendor Approval to Perform Credit Card Network Security Scans
• Chicago Tribune: CTA's "smart" cards give some CTA riders free, unlimited rides
• S1 and Digital Envoy Cooperate on Identity Fraud Prevention for Financial Institutions
• Cub Foods Launches Biometric Payment Technology
• Apropos Technology Improves Customer Satisfaction at Genpass

Scot Paltrow reports for the Wall St. Journal on plans that could enable credit unions to offer international money transfer and remittance services.

Credit unions are bound like other financial institutions to obey anti-money-laundering laws, and to report suspicious activity. But the task may be easier for them. Banks say the federal laws are burdensome because they mean the banks have to keep a close eye on the independent money-transfer firms that hold accounts with them. But credit unions have no such burden because they are the money-transfer agents themselves.

Sarah Ryle reports for Guardian Online about moves that GE is making in the UK to become a direct consumer provider of multiple financial services products.

'Once we have customers in through the credit and store cards we want them to use us for their other financial services,' said UK GE Capital boss Brad Cooper. 'We have been providing finances to those customers via retailers and other intermediaries and now we will rebrand as GE Money and become a direct provider.'

Bob Keefe of Cox News Service writes about RFID-equipped proximity payment cards.

Bruce Cundiff, an analyst at technology research company Jupiter Research, doesn't give the new contactless cards a much better chance than those chip-embedded cards in the United States.

The biggest problem, Cundiff said, is convincing merchants to shell out millions to add new payment terminals to their stores. So far, he said, the card companies have typically helped pay for new equipment at partner merchants. "It's just going to take a lot of money, and it's not going to come from the merchants, because they don't really need this," Cundiff said.

Joe Morgan reports for the UK's Times Online on actions taken by four of Britain's biggest banks to slow down intra-bank payments to help combat security breaches stemming from phishing attacks.

This week Barclays introduced a one-day delay for transfers. A spokeswoman said: “This delay enables us to carry out checks that seek to prevent fraud.” Halifax also introduced delays in the processing of payments this week, as have Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest.

As a sidebar to a longer story about PayPal's potential future plans, Business Week Online's Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Robert Hof interviews PayPal CEO Jeff Jordan.

Q: What merchants are you going after, and what can you offer them?

A: The bulk of it is large merchants. We're in conversations with a lot of these guys. The merchants right now, from the largest to the smallest, are very concerned about the cost of payments. The cost of their credit-card accounts keeps going up, and the merchants aren't happy about this.

Yesterday, First Data Corp. held an Investor Conference in Omaha. A webcast replay plus the presentation slides from the conference are available online.

Interestingly, FDC CEO Charlie Fote used the following statement to illuminate FDC's tag line "Making Life Easier":

We want to lead with our brands, to process any payment, from any device, at any time, to any account.

EUFISERV and China UnionPay have announced an agreement that will allow China UnionPay cardholders to access participating EUFISERV member ATM's for cash withdrawal. This is the first agreement that China UnionPay has made with a European processing company.   » Continue Reading

• GonzoBanker: Death of Internet Banking?
• AP: N.C. Banks Send Notice of Security Breach
• WSJ: Casinos Bet on Radio-ID Gambling Chips
• VeriFone and Pay By Touch Form Strategic Partnership for Biometric Payment Solutions
• Transaction Network Services Acquires FusionPoint Technology Solutions
• Pay By Touch Selects Cogent's Technology to Enhance Their Secure Biometric Payment System

Pay By Touch has announced that Piggly Wiggly has decided to deploy a storewide expansion of the Pay By Touch consumer biometric payment service in its grocery stores throughout South Carolina and Georgia.   » Continue Reading

First Data has announced the acquisition of Vigo Remittance Corp., a provider of electronic money transfer services. Financial terms were not disclosed.   » Continue Reading

Tony Adams writes in TSYS' hometown paper, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, about yesterday's announcement that TSYS will be processing Capital One's credit card accounts.   » Continue Reading

• Web merchants behind in meeting payment security deadline, expert says
• Wachovia Ranks Number One in Web Site Satisfaction Among Customers
• Litigation Threatens to Capsize U.S. General Purpose Gift Cards Market
• Credit card too slow for your busy life?
• AP: 43 Pct. of Adults Get 'Phishing' Contacts
• WSJ: American Express Legal Deal Unravels
• BitPass Enables Premium Podcasts
• GE Consumer Finance to Acquire 49.99 Percent Interest in BAC International Bank Inc.
• Alliance Data Systems Selected by Top-10 Jewelry Retailer Crescent Jewelers to Provide Private Label Credit Card Services

TSYS has announced that it has "reached an agreement in principle with Capital One Financial Corporation to provide processing services for Capital One's North American portfolio of consumer and small-business credit card accounts."

Eric Dash reports for the New York Time's Advertising section about new advertising efforts being launched by American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

Like the candy and cola wars, the three-way advertising frenzy among the credit card companies reflects the challenges of a saturated marketplace. Until recently, the payment associations, which provide the electronic processing network and basic card platforms to their issuing banks, largely left product advertising to their members. But as debit card use has risen and credit card growth has slowed, the companies are struggling to find new customers and get existing ones to use the cards more.

Jennifer Saranow reports for the Wall St. Journal on Wachovia's new "Honors" reward program.

Wachovia hopes its rewards program will persuade wealthy customers to boost their account balances at the bank rather than transfer money to a brokerage firm or elsewhere.