This week's Business Week has an article about Bank of America's aspirations to become a major player in investment banking - and discusses the "build" vs. "buy" approaches to achieving that goal. One of the "buy" approaches mentioned is a potential acquisition of Morgan Stanley - which would also bring along Morgan Stanley's Discover Card unit.

InComm has announced a partnership with KING Products and Solutions that enables InComm to provide retailers with self-service kiosks to offer highly popular prepaid wireless products and bill payment services.

CheckFreePay, a business unit of CheckFree Corporation, and Boost Mobile, a youth lifestyle-based telecommunications brand, have announced that Boost Mobile's eRe-Boost service is now available at select CheckFreePay walk-in locations. eRe-Boost enables consumers across the United States to electronically add minutes to their Boost Mobile cellular phones.

Katherine Jimenez reports for The Australian about comments made by Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Philip Lowe to the parliamentary House Economics Committee saying that a zero interchange fee policy was "an interesting idea worth further exploration".

Reuters reports that Visa USA's first quarter 2006 payment volume was $318.2 billion, up 17.4 percent year over year. US consumer credit card volume was $136.6 billion - up 10.1 percent - while Visa's Check (debit) card volume was $109.8 billion - up 17.6 percent. Interlink online debit volume increased over 43 percent to $32.3 billion. The total number of US Visa cards outstanding was 497.2 million, up 9.8 percent.

MasterCard had earlier reported its first quarter results - reporting purchase volume on its credit cards in the US at $148.9 billion, up 13.2 percent while its US debit card volume was $33.9 billion, up 28.7%.

New research from TowerGroup, titled "Credit Card Profitability in a New World: Meeting the Challenge of Changed Consumer Behavior", finds that 2006 and 2007 will find US credit card issuers facing new revenue challenges and threats, and exploring innovative options to mitigate the impact of these challenges.

Viewpointe has announced that its image exchange connection with the Federal Reserve Banks is in production. The connection provides Viewpointe customers with the ability to send and receive check images with all financial institutions in the U.S. SunTrust is the first Viewpointe customer to take advantage of the expanded reach offered with the Federal Reserve Banks connection.

Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com about an update to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, expected this summer based on comments from Tom Maxwell, director of e-Business and Emerging Technologies at MasterCard International.

• NetDeposit NDpro Scanner Solutions Enables Banks to Offer the Complete Remote Deposit Capture Solution
• Payment Processing, Inc. Partners with United Systems Technology, Inc. to Offer Integrated Credit Card Processing for Utility Billing
• Treasury Announces New Ways to Simplify Tax Payments
• ViVOtech ViVOpay 5000 Contactless Reader First to Receive Global Certification From the MasterCard PayPass(TM) Program
• PayPal Wins Webby Awards for Financial Services
• A List of the Nation's 61 Industrial Loan Corporations
• Washington Mutual Enhances Home Equity Line of Credit Product to Provide Greater Payment Flexibility
• Consumer Reports: Do you need this new credit score? (VantageScore)