We've been mulling over NACHA's announcement earlier this week that its board has approved a pilot of a new "credit push" initiative. Glenbrook's Jim Salters shares some initial reactions and raises some new questions about the new NACHA plan.

An early stage, very well funded company that we at Glenbrook know is actively looking for a senior professional to head their credit risk function (mainly smaller consumer loans) prior to launch of the company in the US. The position is based in San Francisco.

If you're interested in exploring this opportunity, please send an email as soon as possible to .

If you've not yet had a chance to participate in the Payments News Survey, please try to do so in the next few days. We'll be wrapping things up, digesting the results, and sharing some of the feedback here later next week!

For those of you who have already completed the survey, thanks very much again for taking the time to do so. Your feedback is very valuable and important to us in improving what we do here on Payments News.

Visa USA has announced the Visa Prepaid Load Network, a new service which will allow consumers to more easily purchase and add funds to Visa reloadable prepaid cards at participating merchant locations across the U.S.

Hiawatha Bray writes for the Boston Globe about the increasing use of ZIP code as an additional authentication factor for card authorizations at the point of sale. Bray notes differences in policies between, for example, American Express (allows) and MasterCard (prohibits) in allowing merchants to prompt for the ZIP codes as well as both the potential for and the issues associated with using biometrics for cardholder authentication at POS.

Robin Sidel reports in this morning's Wall St. Journal on a recent alert sent by Visa USA to merchant acquirers that some third-party POS software may be storing certain card or PIN information inappropriately.

Carol Pucci writes for the Seattle Times about how banks are getting more aggressive about "locking down their systems when they suspect fraud, leaving travelers stranded without access to their cash, and no warning." Being on the road with no access to cash from ATMs makes a grouchy traveler!

David Miller reports for InternetNews.com on Google's limited trial of a new online payment processing service for users of its beta Google Base service.

Andrew Kantor comments for USA Today on the recent incidents of debit card fraud and expresses frustrations that either no one knows where the security breach occurred enabling the fraud or no one is telling.

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

• Digital Transactions: First Data’s Bailis Ponders His Strategy for Debit Cards, Services
• Lloyds tackles cash machine fraud
• San Francisco Chronicle: Dissecting new credit scoring
• INGENICO: real-time sales consolidation on BlackBerry
• Oberthur Sells Smart Cards To U.S. Department Of Interior
• Visa notes acceptance by Filipinos of e-card payments
• Boston Globe: Paying by credit card? Have your zip code handy
• Foreign Banks Target China's Retail Banking Market
• Maine: Fate of debit-card legislation uncertain
• New Zealand: GAS Signs Card And Top-Up Agreement with Smartpay
• CNET: Banks do battle with debit-card fraud
• Business Week: What's Lurking in That RFID Tag?
• Denver: A warning for debit card users
• Banking Business Review: Australian credit cards: issuers' interchange plea likely to fall on deaf ears
• ASK to Supply Contactless Payment Cards for Singapore