Visa USA has announced a new strategy to accelerate Visa card acceptance and consumer usage at traditionally cash-heavy, smaller ticket businesses.

"Consumers clearly expect more from their payments. From coffee to movies, consumers choose their cards over cash because of the ease, security, and rewards they offer," explains Elizabeth Buse, executive vice president, Product Development and Management, Visa USA.

"Our initiative will grow preference for Visa payments over paper by making checkout faster, offering consumers an undisputed convenience and delivering bottom-line value to merchants."

Fujitsu Services in the UK has published the results of a recent survey of online web shoppers in which 44% of them said that banks should reward them for being careful with their personal security online.

“If you are buying house insurance you expect a better rate if you have taken precautions like fitting window locks or an alarm,” explains Ann Hosford, marketing manager, Financial Services business unit, Fujitsu Services. “But responsible web shoppers effectively carry the can for those who don’t take sensible steps to protect themselves from online fraud.”

Parija Bhatnagar reports for CNN/Money on what's happening this year in gift cards.

On the horizon from SVS are CD gift cards, which the company expects to launch early next year. "These are content gift cards on which you can put your favorite music, recipes or anything else and play it on your computer or take it into stores and use them like regular gift cards," Stored Value Systems (SVS) EVP Bob Skiba said.

The October issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Profitwise newsletter is now available online -- and it includes two articles on the remittance market and its implications for moving immigrants towards mainstream financial products:

• Linking International Remittance Flows to Financial Services: Tapping the Latino Immigrant Market (PDF)
• Banking on Remittances: Reaching the Immigrant Market (PDF)

Are you a payments professional living in the San Francisco Bay Area? The next meeting of BayPay, the payments professionals' networking group for the San Francisco area is being held next Monday, November 7, at 6 PM in San Francisco. If you're not already a BayPay member and are interested in attending next week's meeting, please contact us for more information.

Robin Sidel reports for the Wall St. Journal on how credit card issuers are now pursuing the market for smaller payments less than $5.

Many small transactions still are cash-based, making card companies salivate at the prospect of turning those payments into plastic. The market for transactions valued at less than $5 accounted for $1.32 trillion in consumer spending in 2003, representing more than 400 billion transactions, according to research by TowerGroup, a unit of MasterCard International Inc. By comparison, Visa processes a total of about $2 trillion of global transactions each year.

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