Visa International Latin America has announced that Internet purchases with Visa branded products in Latin America hit record sales volume of more than US $2 billion in 2005. This represents a growth rate of 52 percent over 2004 - indicating consumer confidence in conducting online transactions.

The AP reports on Federal Reserve's report that 2005 saw the smallest growth in consumer revolving debt in 23 years, rising just 2.6 percent for the year. Revolving debt actually fell by 1.4 percent on an annualized basis for December 2005.

Visa USA has announced the launch of "Life Takes Visa", its first new brand campaign in 20 years.

"Employing the theme of empowerment, the new campaign reflects Visa's evolution from a top credit card company to the leader in electronic payments, combining worldwide acceptance with a full suite of products that empower cardholders to do what they need to do, want to do and never thought possible." The campaign debuts during the upcoming Olympic Winter Games on NBC and can be previewed online at http://www.visa.com/advertising.

SHPS, a provider of healthcare spending accounts, has announced an agreement with First Data Healthcare Services and UMB Bank Healthcare Services to offer a multi-purse debit card and related transaction processing services for SHPS' client's spending account programs.

One of the cool things about Zopa is their Zopa blog where they talk regularly about the stuff they're doing in revolutionizing the consumer finance space. We first wrote about Zopa last August.

The FSTC Board of Directors has announced Daniel Schutzer as the new FSTC Executive Director, effective February 27, 2006.

Executives from the retail and payments industries are invited to join a free webinar, Contactless Payments: A New Era of Payments for Retailers, hosted by the Smart Card Alliance Contactless Payments Council in partnership with the National Retail Federation STORES magazine to be held Feb. 22 at Noon Eastern time.

Royal Philips Electronics and Telefonica Moviles Espana have announced they will be demonstrating NFC technology at the 3GSM World Congress by providing 200 selected attendees with NFC-enabled Samsung SGH-X700 mobile phones to be used in a variety of applications throughout the conference and exhibition area.

Gail Liberman and Alan Levine report for MarketWatch.com on so-called "bank alternatives" including payday loan companies seeking to target the financial strapped middle class.

Cliff D'Arcy writes a commentary for The Motley Fool UK about a new practice by Barclaycard that shortens the grace period within which the payment is due for "transactor"-type cardholders who regularly pay off their statement in full each month.

Lindsay Fiori writes for the Marquette Tribune at Marquette University about the increasing use of debit cards by college students - over credit cards, cash and checks.

Fidelity National Information Services, formerly known as Certegy, has announced a three-year exclusive agreement with Official Payments Corp., a subsidiary of Tier Technologies, to issue Visa prepaid debit cards for use in expediting government child support disbursements.

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

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