January 9th edition of Business Week contains a lengthy investigative report by Brian Grow on online money transfer systems like e-gold Ltd. The article focuses on the potential use of the e-gold payment service by those wanting to move money while skirting the reporting obligations associated with US money laundering regulations.

Technorati Tags: E-gold, Money Transfer

On this last day of 2005, here's a quick reminder that you can get a free credit report every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

To request yours, visit AnnualCreditReport.com.

Damon Darlin reports for the New York Times on the flurry of rewards-based credit cards now being offered.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced an agreement for the acquisition of GZS by First Data. GZS is Germany's leading processor of cashless, card-based payment transactions. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Completion of the transaction, which is expected to occur in the second quarter 2006, is subject to approval of relevant authorities.

Technorati Tags: First Data Corp.

Vanessa Richardson reports for MSNBC on the movement by banks to stronger authentication beyond simple userids and passwords.

Technorati Tags: FFIEC, PassMark Security, SiteKey, Two-Factor Authentication

Natalie Gott reports for the Associated Press on Bank of America's plans to complete the acquisition of MBNA this Sunday, January 1, 2006.   » Continue Reading

Peter Burrows reports for Business Week on I4 Commerce's Bill Me Later.

Technorati Tags: Bill Me Later, Ecommerce Payments

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• China to monitor mobile phone payments in search for porn sites
• UK: Banks criticised over lending practices
• Dept. of Homeland Security Completes Foundation Of Biometric Entry System

Technorati Tags: China Payments, Mobile Payments, UK Payments

Melissa Allison reports for the Seattle Times on Washington Mutual's likelihood of being acquired by another bank (in particular, by JP Morgan Chase), in 2006.   » Continue Reading

Forbes' Seth Lubove examines the opportunities for micropayments in 2006 including mentions of BitPass and Peppercoin.

Technorati Tags: BitPass, Peppercoin, Micropayments

We're taking a look back at the major payments-related news stories for 2005. We've examined our archives month by month and have culled the the most important and interesting highlights.

Here are the Payments News highlights from July 2005.   » Continue Reading

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• China UnionPay : 2005 cross-bank transactions expected to exceed RMB 1 trillion
• Debt Collection Agency Services in Demand for 2006
• Myvesta Survey Shows Americans Paring Down Credit Card Debt
• JCB Certified for BS7799-2:2002 and ISMS Standards in Japan

Visa USA reports $32.2 billion in holiday spending volumes for the week before Christmas (Dec. 19 - Dec. 25) were up 26.9 percent over the same period last year. Friday, December 23rd was the highest overall sales volume day of the 2005 holiday shopping season as consumers spent over $5.9 billion.   » Continue Reading

Jonathan Birchall reports for the Financial Times on Pay By Touch's plans to expand from 300 stores today equipped with its biometric payment service to an estimated 6,000 stores by the end of next year.   » Continue Reading

iPayment has announced that it has agreed to a buyout at $43.50 per share by a new corporation formed by Chairman and CEO Gregory S. Daily and will be taken private as a result. Earlier, the company had appointed a special committee of its board of directors to consider Daily's offers.   » Continue Reading

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• Booleansoft Introduces Digital Signature Solution
• HSA Bank Announces Relationship With Metavante's MBI Benefits

We're taking a look back at the major payments-related news stories for 2005. We've examined our archives month by month and have culled the the most important and interesting highlights.

Here are the Payments News highlights from June 2005.   » Continue Reading

Over the Christmas holiday weekend, I happened to notice that PayPal had some consumer-focused advertising up on the Boston Globe's website - in the right sidebar of the Globe's Business section- note that PayPal's ad is in an ad rotation and you may not see it unless you refresh the page several times. This is the first time that I recall seeing this kind of consumer-focused advertising from PayPal.   » Continue Reading

Shuchi Vyas reports to India's Economic Times on mobile payments and the expected growth in mobile commerce in India. The article says that mobile commerce is considered to be the next killer application for mobile phones.   » Continue Reading

Valerie Miller reports for the Las Vegas Business Press on casino operator perspectives on "new-fangled payment systems."   » Continue Reading

Stephanie King reports for the Wall St. Journal on an optimistic report from MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse retail data service that concludedholiday spending rose 8.7 percent.   » Continue Reading

Huang Tien-lin, a national policy adviser to the president of Taiwan, writes an op-ed piece for the Taipei Times on the problems of excessive credit card debt in Taiwan.

In Singapore, NEC has announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind RFID-enabled customer card that will store relevant details of customer's purchase, warranty programme and service records.   » Continue Reading

We're taking a look back at the major payments-related news stories for 2005. We've examined our archives month by month and have culled the the most important and interesting highlights.

Here are the Payments News highlights from May 2005.   » Continue Reading

Last week, First Data Corp., as part of a series of restructurings and reorganizations now underway following replacement of its CEO, announced that its BidPay Online Auction Payment Service is being shut down later this week. This article explores what lessons might we learn from BidPay's ultimate failure in the market.   » Continue Reading

Naomi Canton reports for the UK's Norwich Evening News on one family's experience with Christmas time identity theft affecting their credit and debit card accounts.   » Continue Reading

Joseph Menn reports for the Los Angeles Times on efforts by various data brokers to support federal rules to safeguard personal information - preferring a consistent federal standard vs. a range of potentially tougher and more varied state laws.   » Continue Reading

Bob Mook reports for the Denver Business Journal on instant card issuance and Englewood, CO-based Dynamic Card Solutions.   » Continue Reading

Anthony Faiola reports for the Washington Post on growth in the use of e-cash payments in Japan following widespread deployment of e-cash equipped cell phones by NTT DoCoMo.   » Continue Reading

Scott Reeves reports for Forbes on using credit (and credit cards) wisely.

Natalie Weinstein reports for CNET News.com that Visa USA has acknowledged today that a U.S. merchant "may have experienced a data security breach" that compromised credit card account information.

Ina Steiner reports for AuctionBytes.com that First Data's BidPay unit is closing down operations on December 31, 2005.   » Continue Reading

This week's Top 11 Most Popular News Stories on Payments News are:

• Tom Peters Interviews Eric Jackson, Author of "The PayPal Wars" - Management guru Tom Peters has fun interviewing PayPal Wars author Eric Jackson.
• When PayPal Becomes the Back Office, Too - A look at how small businesses are using PayPal's payment capabilities.
• Citi Launches New American Express Credit Cards - Over a year after announcing their card issuing alliance, Citi prepares to launch five new American Express-branded cards in January.
• Risky Business: Managing Electronic Payments in the 21st Century - The Philidelphia Fed's Payment Card Center publishes a summary of a recent conference on electronic payments.
• Contactless Payments Outlook for 2006 - A commentary from MasterCard on what's shaping up to be a big year for contactless payments in 2006.

IndianTelevision.com reports on Visa International's new brand identity and the Reliance Any Time Money Card that will be the first Visa payment product that will have the new Visa brand identity and design in India.   » Continue Reading

Kim Norris reports for the Detroit Free Press on the growing number of banks who are beginning to offer health savings accounts.   » Continue Reading

Sarana Schell reports for the Anchorage Daily News on merchant card authorization practices and how authorizing larger amounts can affect a cardholder's availability of funds.   » Continue Reading

Harold Davis reports for the Stamford, CT Advocate on GE Consumer FInance's new private label credit card for Carvin Music.   » Continue Reading

Nicole Warburton writes for the Deseret Morning News about plans by the Utah Transit Authority to test a contactless card-based fare collection system.   » Continue Reading

American Express announced two major bank credit card issuing partnership deals this week: Bank of America and HSBC.

In both deals the removal of each bank from the list of defendants in the litigation American Express is pursuing (re: damages associated with MasterCard and Visa losing the US antitrust case) may have been an important element.   » Continue Reading

HSBC -- North America Holdings, Inc. and American Express have announced an agreement for HSBC to offer American Express-branded credit cards in the United States. American Express has also announced that it will dismiss HSBC from its antitrust litigation against Visa, MasterCard and a number of major U.S. banks.   » Continue Reading

Laura Wides-Munoz reports for the Associated Press on increasing focus by US banks on the international remittance market.   » Continue Reading

Binyamin Appelbaum reports for the Charlotte Observer on a ruling yesterday by the North Carolina banking regulators that payday lender Advance America violated state law by charging excessive interest rates on short-term loans.   » Continue Reading

Certegy has announced it is acquiring the assets of FastFunds Financial and its wholly owned subsidiary Chex Services for approximately $14 million in cash.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. filed an 8-K with the SEC yesterday disclosing that its board had approved the accelerated vesting of all outstanding unvested stock options granted to its officers and employees under its 2002 Long-Term Incentive Plan.   » Continue Reading

Josh Gerstein reports for the New York Sun on a $75 million settlement by American Express in a lawsuit regarding cardholder fees when making charges in foreign currencies.   » Continue Reading

Kara McGuire reports for the Minneapolis - St. Paul StarTribune on Autumn and Nathan Warden and their consumer debt burdens.   » Continue Reading

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• San Francisco Examiner: Visa USA’s Jon Raj uses media’s entire range
• Tracy Press: Shoppers flock to gift cards

Bankrate.com advises consumers how to deal with their credit card debt - aggressively.   » Continue Reading

Madlen Read reports for the Associated Press on a reader's question about the security of online bill payment.   » Continue Reading

Mint Capital Corp. and GE Money, the Canadian consumer lending unit of General Electric Company, have announced an agreement to issue prepaid cards in Canada.   » Continue Reading

Digital Transactions takes a deeper look at mobile payments startup TextPayMe.   » Continue Reading

James Kelleher reports for Reuters on some questions being raised about the MasterCard Foundation that is being setup as part of the planned initial public offering upcoming for MasterCard.   » Continue Reading

Wipro has announced that it is acquiring mPower, a niche payments company based in Princeton, NJ.   » Continue Reading

Susan Tompor writes for the Detroit Free Press about just how difficult (impossible?) it is to use some gift cards for partial payment on purchases.   » Continue Reading

Rick Rothacker reports for the Charlotte Observer on the background behind yesterday's announcement that Bank of America will begin issuing American Express cards - while American Express is dropping Bank of America from the list of defendants in the damages lawsuit it has filed against Visa, MasterCard and several card issuing banks.   » Continue Reading

The National Retail Federation is reminding merchants that there's only a week left to get claims forms filed in order to receive their share of the $3.1 billion settlement of the Visa and MasterCard debit card litigation.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Canada has announced that 12 of its card issuers will be working with MasterCard and five acquirers to introduce chip-enabled MasterCard payment cards in Canada by 2010.   » Continue Reading

Bank of America and American Express have announced that Bank of America will issue Bank of America branded American Express cards in the United States. American Express has also announced its intention to dismiss Bank of America from its antitrust litigation against Visa, MasterCard and a number of major U.S. banks.   » Continue Reading

TSYS has announced that it has received official notification from Bank of America of its intent, pending its acquisition of MBNA, to shift the processing of its consumer card portfolio in house in October 2006.   » Continue Reading

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• UK watchdog gives final warning on store cards
• Bill-paying is safer online than by mail
• Nigeria: Interswitch partners with Verifone, others to purchase 50, 000 POS terminals
• Online Merchants Choosing Alternative Payment Options

Elizabeth White reports for the Associated Press on gift cards and increasing consumer concerns about those that expire without the customer knowing it or otherwise lose value if not spent.   » Continue Reading

The Payment Cards Center of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank has just published a new discussion paper, Risky Business: Managing Electronic Payments in the 21st Century (PDF) by Marilyn Bochicchio and Stanley Sienkiewicz.   » Continue Reading

CR80 posts an outlook on contactless payments for 2006 written by Cathleen Conforti, MasterCard Senior VP and PayPass Global Product Manager.   » Continue Reading

As part of its fourth quarter earnings announcement this morning, Morgan Stanley announced financial results for its Discover unit.   » Continue Reading

Over a year after their relationship was publicly announced, this morning it's official - Citibank and American Express have announced the launch of Citi's new American Express-branded cards to be available to consumers beginning January 15, 2006. Other than carrying the new Amex brand, Citi's new cards appear to be essentially comparable to its existing MasterCard and Visa-branded cards in terms of cardholder benefits, fees, etc.   » Continue Reading

Morgan Stanley has announced the acquisition of the Goldfish credit card business in the UK from Lloyds TSB. For more information on Goldfish, see: www.goldfish.com.   » Continue Reading

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced a new workshop "Toward a More Secure Web -- W3C Workshop on Transparency and Usability of Web Authentication" to be held at Citigroup in New York City in March 2006.   » Continue Reading

Sandra Block reports for USA Today on gift cards - and tips on how to get the best deal.   » Continue Reading

The Age reports from Melbourne, Australia on plans announced today by the Reserve Bank of Australia to reform the country's EFTPOS debit card system. The reforms include access to the EFTPOS system as well as adjustments to proposed interchange fees.   » Continue Reading

Robin Sidel reports for the Wall St. Journal that JP Morgan Chase's credit card unit has begun pursuing less credit worthy consumers in an effort to boost profits.   » Continue Reading

Ron Lieber and Robin Sidel report for the Wall St. Journal on Citi Cards' upcoming launch of five American Express-branded Citi cards.   » Continue Reading

Citigroup CEO Charles Prince held an investor/analyst day briefing last Friday. Slides from the briefing are available on the Citigroup web site.

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• Law.com: Behind the Deal: Yahoo's GC Talks About Alibaba.com
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Security breach notification bill won't protect consumers, group says
• Gemplus-Goldpac First to Deliver EMV Cards to ICBC, China's Leading Bank

Pay By Touch has announced that Farm Fresh has completed the installation of biometric payment technology in all 41 locations across Hampton Roads and Elizabeth City, North Carolina.   » Continue Reading

Jorge Porter reports for Business News Americas on Visa's projected growth of 25% annually in its Latin America and Caribbean region for the next three to five years.   » Continue Reading

Prasad Sangameshwaran and Rituparna Chatterjee report for India's Business Standard on the growth in online ecommerce sales in India based on recent research by AC Nielsen.   » Continue Reading

Mercury Payment Systems has announced the addition of a layer of security to the gift cards it provides to merchants. A card validation code, known as the Card Validation Value (CVV), similar to what is used on bank cards to raise the level of fraud protection, is now also included on the gift cards Mercury provides.   » Continue Reading

AllAfrica.com reports on iVeri Payment Technology, a South African company that delivers mobile point of sale acceptance devices in African countries.   » Continue Reading

People's Daily Online updates its earlier story about the launch of EMV chip cards in China.   » Continue Reading

Kristen Millares Bolt and Bill Virgin report for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Costco's quiet entry into offering a wide range of financial services through partnering - without pursuing a banking charter.   » Continue Reading

JCB has announced that its international subsidiary, JCB International (JCBI), signed an ATM gateway agreement with China UnionPay (CUP) on 16 December. This will enable CUP cardholders to have access to ATM networks in Japan through a gateway platform provided by JCBI.   » Continue Reading

The Electronic Payments Network (EPN), the ACH business of The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C., has announced that more than $1 billion in UPIC payments have been received by public and private entities across the United States.   » Continue Reading

Paul Wenske writes for Knight-Ridder Newspapers about "zombie debt", old charged off consumer debt that collection agencies are increasingly pursuing.   » Continue Reading

Anthony Faiola reports for the Washington Post on electronic payments in Japan.   » Continue Reading

Pay By Touch has announced the appointment of Steven Yecies as senior vice president and general manager of the company's new health care business division. Yecies will lead the company's launch into the health care industry, where Pay By Touch expects to leverage its biometric service application to make improvements for patients, providers, payers and retail pharmacists.   » Continue Reading

Note: Throughout the day, as Payments News happens, this post is updated.

• ClickPay Solutions Appoints New CEO
• RSA Federated Identity Manager Enables U.S. Government Organizations to Support the E-Authentication Initiative
• Telefonica Empresas and Cyota Team to Bring Anti Fraud Services to Spanish Financial Institutions; Telefonica and Cyota Announce New Agreement

This week's Top 11 Most Popular New Stories on Payments News are:

• Glenbrook's QuickTake: TextPayMe- Glenbrook's Russ Jones does a quick analysis of the just announced TextPayMe SMS-based mobile payment service.
• First Data's Card Unit "Up In Air" - Last week's Omaha World-Herald story on FDR - before the layoffs in the card issuer servicing unit announced on Friday.
• TextPayMe Announces SMS-based Money Transfer - Redmond, WA-based TextPayMe launches beta of new mobile payments service.
• YeePay Launches Telephone Payment Service in China - Beijing-based YeePay launches new telephone payment service with major banks in China.
• New Bankruptcy Law Backfiring On Credit Card Issuers? - The law of unintended consequences may be at work for credit card issuers.

M.P. Dunleavey reports for the New York Times on new payment technologies including contactless and biometric payments.   » Continue Reading

Julie Brick reports for the New York Times on how small businesses are using PayPal to invoice and receive payments from clients.   » Continue Reading

The Nation reports from Bangkok that the "Bank of Thailand (BOT) has approved the setting up by the Thai Bankers’ Association of a national Interbank Transaction-Management Exchange (ITMX) to provide electronic payment services on the Internet."   » Continue Reading

Rupert Steiner reports for The Business Online (UK) on Great Universal Stores (GUS), parent company of Experian, and its recently announced acquisition of PriceGrabber.com.   » Continue Reading