Citibank has launched its Thank You Rewards program -- last year for its credit card customers and earlier this year for its retail banking debit card customers.

Basically, by using a Citi debit or credit card, you can earn ThankYou Points that can then be redeemed for rewards - although the specifics of what you earn varies depending upon the particular Citi card that you're using to make a purchase and the value of the points varies depending upon which specific reward you redeem them for.

We recently had an Ask Glenbrook question about the relative value of debit and credit product participation in the Thank You Rewards programs. Based upon some quick research done on the Citibank web sites, here's what we learned. READ MORE »

MasterCard Advisors has announced the launch of the first fully integrated end-to-end rewards solution in the Europe region with MasterCard Rewards Services (MRS).

Geoffrey Newman reports for Australian IT on the Reserve Bank of Australia's move to force publication of interchange fees in the Australian BPay bill payment scheme.

"In the event that BPay is unwilling to publish its interchange fees, (the RBA) will call for submissions on whether it would be in the public interest to designate the BPay system with a view to considering the possibility of setting a standard that would require BPay to publish these fees," the bank said in a statement.

More in this RBA press release.

The Payments Card Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released two new discussion papers:

The first, “Forum on Validation of Consumer Credit Risk Models (PDF),” summarizes the discussion from a one-day conference of the same name held on November 19, 2004 in conjunction with Wharton’s Financial Institutions Center. The conference brought together leading academics, policymakers, and industry experts to discuss the general principles management can use as keys for effective model validation and risk assessment.

The second, “The Cost Effectiveness of Stored-Value Products for Unbanked Consumers (PDF),” is based on a March 30, 2005 workshop led by Sherrie L.W. Rhine and Sabrina Su of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Office of Regional and Community Affairs. Rhine and Su discussed the relevance of stored-value cards to “unbanked” or underserved consumers.

GE's Corporate Payment Services unit has announced it has secured an additional patent covering the account pooling aspects of its vPayment electronic settlement tool. Account pooling operates in a manner very similar to single use card numbers in that a unique card number is used for each payment transaction.

"vPayment is a supplier-friendly way to reduce your organization's dependence on the time-consuming check writing process. It offers the controls of a check, the float of a purchasing card, and the efficiency of electronic funds transfer," said Jeffery R. Dye, president and CEO of Corporate Payment Services, the commercial card unit of GE Consumer Finance.

"The account pool patent further strengthens vPayment's advantages for organizations looking for added control and efficiency."

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