The latest Nilson Report has arrived featuring an in-depth look at the PIN and signature-based debit card brand, issuer, and shared EFT network market shares (subscription only). Among other feature articles, this issue also has an interesting article discussing American Express' healthcare cards.

The mainstream press headline writers are having a ball writing titles for their stories about MasterCard's upcoming IPO. This time, the story's from Justin Grant writing for Reuters. The offering is scheduled to launch next Wednesday, May 24th and it couldn't come soon enough -- given these corny headlines!

The Association for Financial Professionals has published a new guide titled "A Corporate Guide to Card Payments and the Role of Interchange" designed to "educate organizations about the card acceptance process and help them proactively manage and reduce transaction processing expenses."

There's been some interest expressed by some of our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp alumni for an update, in particular, on many of the things happening in the emerging payments space - especially around mobile payments, prepaid/stored value, and contactless/Near Field Communications, etc. In addition, we've had requests wanting to get an updated perspective on what's happening with the world of payment security as well.

Earlier this week, American Express CEO Ken Chenault spoke at the UBS Global Financial Services Conference in New York - along with a number of other bank and financial services company CEO's. Chenault's presentation (PDF) and prepared remarks (PDF) are available online on the American Express web site.

A new issue of the Visa Quarterly has been published by Visa International spotlighting Visa's efforts in the commercial payments arena. Included is an interview with Aliza Knox, senior vice president of Visa Commercial who says "the commercial solutions division is the fastest growing area within Visa, surpassing debit in annual growth rates, with continuous growth of over 25 percent for the last five years."

Liz Moyer writes for Forbes IPO Outlook about MasterCard's upcoming initial public offering. She says that "investors need to consider what they're getting into" because of the planned use of proceeds to buy out a portion of member bank shareholders and the costs likely to be associated with on-going litigation. She also speculates about MasterCard eventually (after the litigation issues are sorted out) being an "ideal takeover candidate".

Earlier this week, Visa USA CEO John Philip Coghlan spoke at the UBS Global Financial Services Conference in New York - along with a number of other bank and financial services company CEO's. Coghlan's presentation (PDF) and prepared remarks (PDF) are available online on the Visa USA web site.

Visa USA has posted its summary of performance data for the first quarter 2006 (PDF) detailing year over year growth rates across its various card products. Net fraud as a percentage of total volume increased from 6 to 7 basis points during the quarter.

The associations of the German banking industry represented in the Zentraler Kreditausschuss (ZKA) have announced they have signed letters of intent with other European partners for the launch of a pilot project for the mutual acceptance of debit cards between countries with direct bilateral processing of these transactions. The effort will be coordinated by a new Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes without the involvement of the MasterCard or Visa international systems.

Febelfin, the Belgian Finance Federation, and Banksys, operator of the entire Belgian debit card system, have announced that the Belgian banks have decided that the national Bancontact/Mister Cash (BC/MC) system for domestic card payments and money withdrawals will be replaced by 2008 with the issuance of Maestro cards, MasterCard's debit card mark.

Business Week takes an in-depth look at some of the "cybercrooks" it says are responsible for "stealing billions" in an article by Spencer E. Ante, Brian Grow, and Roman Olearchyk.

• Financial Insights - Whitepaper Published: Convergence of Bank Payment Systems (PDF)
  
• Taiwan's "credit card slaves" labor to repay debts
  
• Giesecke & Devrient Names New Smart Card Chief: Michael Kuemmerle
  
• Merchants' lawsuit could end credit-card rewards
  
• FORTUNE: Why bank stocks are cash machines