Bank of Hawaii Corporation and MBNA America Bank, N.A. have announced the signing of a joint marketing agreement under which Bank of Hawaii will offer Visa and American Express credit cards to consumers and Visa credit cards to businesses.

Anusha Shrivastava reports for the Waterbury, CT Republican American on concerns being raised by Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal about surcharges that utilities are charging customers who pay their utility bills by credit card.

Candace Heckman reports for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on numerous reports from Bank of America customers of checking account fraud in Seattle and elsewhere in which ATM cash withdrawals and purchases are occuring overseas.

The New Zealand Banking Business Review reports on comments by Visa's New Zealand head Ian Jamieson that smart card rollouts will accelerate in 2006.

Michael Arrington has profiled the new "social money" startup BillMonk over on his TechCrunch blog. See also our earlier post about BillMonk.

Technorati Tags: BillMonk, TechCrunch

Jennifer Hill reports for The Scotsman on the increasing removal of cashback rewards credit cards from the UK market.