Phishing is already passé among global cybercriminals - according to Tom Zeller Jr.'s article "Cyberthieves Silently Copy as You Type" in Monday's New York Times.   » Continue Reading

This week's Business Week reports on a new category of personal finance blogs called "money bloggers" - where the authors discuss their personal financial situations, their goals and strategies, and share their financial results as they make their moves.   » Continue Reading

We recently received the a question about PayPal's revenues and the fees it charges to sellers:

I do have a question for you regarding Paypal's revenues. In your summary of PayPal's 2005 financial results, PayPal's revenues were reported as representing "3.67% percent of gross payment volume, up 10 basis points from 3.57% last year." It seems like that number is high.

Eric Bangeman writes for Arstechnica about Google's Friday update on its payment plans, explores the potential implications for eBay and PayPal (Buy It Now listings seem most at risk from a Google Base/Payments combo), and asks, in a year or so, whether people will be saying "Googling me the money" instead of "PayPaling" it like they do today.   » Continue Reading

In his article "Your Call Should Be Important to Us, but It's Not," William C. Taylor writes for the Sunday New York Times about how silly it is that companies who could be learning so much directly from their customers use technology to attempt to deliver customer service without even listening.   » Continue Reading

Marilyn Gardner writes for The Christian Science Monitor about the personal savings rate of Americans hitting a new low last year (actually a negative number -0.5%) for the first time since the Depression era 1930's.   » Continue Reading

Kathleen Pender writes for the San Francisco Chronicle about how most bank savings accounts, including her daughter's at Wells Fargo, are paying out very low rates of interest and she urges examining several better alternatives.   » Continue Reading

Sonja Ryst reports for Business Week the for many young adults in the 25-to-35 age group, credit-card debt can seem insurmountable. Her "Five for the Money" column lists five specific steps to follow to get control of credit card spending and reduce credit card debt.

Oprah Winfrey has announced America's Debt Diet, a multipart series on The Oprah Winfrey Show focused on helping Americans get out of debt.   » Continue Reading

Dan Fost reports for the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle on PayPal co-founder and Slide.com founder Max Levchin.   » Continue Reading

Stef Donev of Interest.Com writes for the Orlando Sentinel about some of the "odd" aspects of how FICO credit scores are calculated - in particular, on the notion of credit utilization. For example, your credit score will fall if you cancel credit cards with large credit lines but low or no outstanding debt on them and leave open other credit card accounts which are closer to being maxed out.   » Continue Reading

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

• UK: Card Hoppers Beware!
• Citibank to open at least 20 more branches in Mumbai, India