Ron Lieber and Jessica Mintz report for the Wall St. Journal's Saturday edition about paying convenience fees to pay your taxes and why they're not always a rip-off - but only if your card issuer is offering bonuses for tax payments.

PAYMENTS 2006, NACHA's annual conference on electronic payments, will be held this year in San Diego, California from May 7-10 at the San Diego Convention Center.

As a Payments News reader, you can attend this year's conference at the Member's registration price, $200 less than Non-Member registration. To get your discount, register as a member, select Other as your ACH Council affiliation and key in "Payments News subscriber".

Reuters reports on what a number of US bank CEO's made in terms of compensation last year.

The Weekend Australian reports on plans by the standing committee on economics, finance and public administration of the Australian parliament to review reforms made by the Reserve Bank of Australia to the country's payments system - including changes to card interchange fees.   » Continue Reading

Federal regulators have announced the release of Evolution of a Prototype Financial Privacy Notice, a report by Kleimann Communication Group summarizing consumer research commissioned by the regulators as part of their ongoing efforts to develop improved financial privacy notices.   » Continue Reading

National City has announced a new points-based rewards program that "rewards consumer and small business customers with points for everyday transactions, like making purchases with debit and credit cards, paying bills online, writing checks – even improving a home or small business through purchases with a home equity or small business line of credit access card."   » Continue Reading

David Lazarus reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on the elimination of some benefits previously included on Visa debit cards. The banks he mentions planning to eliminate some of the existing debit card benefits include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Wachovia.   » Continue Reading

Bruce Erskine reports for the Halifax, Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald on Visa's migration to smart cards in Canada.   » Continue Reading

Robert Lemos reports for SecurityFocus.com on the Secret Service's Operation Rolling Stone that has recently made seven additional arrests related to the earlier debit card fraud incidents.

• VISA chip cards to be issued in Viet Nam next year
• Record Numbers of New York's Seniors Falling Into Credit Card Debt
• CNet News.com: RSA Security's Cyota division is helping fight phishing attacks by giving the online fraudsters what they want: a lot of usernames, passwords, online-banking credentials and credit card numbers
• Wal-Mart increases capital for new bank
• ViVOtech to Sponsor Payment Enabled NFC-Mobile Phone Giveaway During The NFC Technology Summit at CTIA Wireless 2006
• Jewel-Osco introduces Pay By Touch system
• New Scientist: Beat cybercrime, switch to a virtual wallet
• Yahoo: Banking Today, Payments Tomorrow?
• Humor from Canada: McVISA Cardholder Way Over Her McLimit
• UK: Credit card costs rise for online gambling
• Bankrate.com: Credit cards that hurt your credit score
• Global Payments Reports Third Quarter Earnings
• Australia: Use of debit cards on the rise
• New Zealand: Banks issue ATM fraud warning