In this week's online edition of The New Yorker is "The Perfect Mark" by Mitchell Zuckoff - subtitled "How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian e-mail scam." Amazing!

Jo Best writes from the UK for Silicon.com about Transport of London's Oyster card e-money program and examines why the rollout has been put on hold.

SunTrust Bank has announced a free identity theft protection and credit-monitoring program from Equifax, "becoming the first major bank in the nation to provide Equifax Credit Watch Silver protection for free to select personal checking clients."

Mara Der Hovanesian of Business Week Online looks at whether Wachovia's acquisition of Golden West Financial signals a new round of bank mergers.

Equifax and PayPal have announced a new credit alert program that provides PayPal account holders in the United States with free monitoring of their credit records. Through this relationship, PayPal users receive free early warnings alerting them to activity on their Equifax credit report.

Liz Moyer reports for Forbes on the market for prepaid debit cards.

Silicon.com shares its opinion about the failure of expansion plans for the Transport for London Oyster card and blames the banks for being very short-sighted.

"Mobile payments are set to rise to $10 billion in total revenue by 2010, thanks to the entrance of new players offering m-payment schemes and subsequent consumer demand," according to Alan Goode, senior analyst and author with Juniper Research. "And following the announcement of the expansion of PayPal services into the micro mPayment and mRetail sector, this will only serve to facilitate a fundamental shift in global consumer payment services now and into the future."

• Boston Consulting Group Report Tells European Bankers: Take Action to Renew Underperforming Core Banking IT Systems or Risk Years of Profit-Dragging Inefficiency
• Bottomline Technologies Announces Availability of Enhanced Global Payments Engine
• Fiserv CBS Worldwide Has Record Sales and Renewals for Core Processing and Front-end Systems in 2005
• RMS Expands BankingBonus(TM) Debit Activation and Usage Features; Bank Partner Appoints Product Manager to Tailor Platform to Fee and Retention Drivers
• Fiserv Credit Processing and BillMatrix Announce Alliance to Provide Real-Time, On-Demand Payment Services for Credit Portfolios
• REMITCO Selects Wausau Solution as Enterprise Remittance Platform
• Bank of America Becomes Nation's #1 Home Equity Lender - No-Fee Offering Drives Consumer Demand and Business Growth
• CashEdge Selects Quova for Enhanced Financial Services Risk Management and Compliance Capabilities
• Metavante Helping Clients Navigate Fraud Landscape
• Financial Fusion Teams With RSA Security
• MyStoreRewards Launches Customer Reward Service for Merchants that Use PayPal
• Two factor authentication goes mobile on phones, PDAs, laptops, and more