According to Patrick McGeehan writing in this morning's New York Times about MasterCard's recent IPO, "for every two shares of its newly traded stock that MasterCard has given to its chief executive, Robert W. Selander, it gave about three to the company's rank and file. The entire rank and file."

Richard J. Sullivan, Senior Economist, Payments System Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has published an updated working paper titled "The Supervisory Framework Surrounding Nonbank Participation in the U.S. Retail Payments System: An Overview" (PDF). According to Sullivan, "The purpose of this paper is to lay groundwork for a dialogue on policy to control risk in the U.S. retail payments system in light of trends in nonbank payment providers and in electronic payments." READ MORE »

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has published an article on contactless payments (PDF) by Brye Steeves in the latest issue of its TEN quarterly magazine. The bank also has available a Payment System Research Briefing by Terri Bradford titled "Contactless: The Next Payment Wave?" (PDF).

Binyamin Appelbaum writes for the Charlotte Observer about the record level of credit card solicitations last year - over 6 billion mailed solicitations of with only 18 million offers, or about 0.3 percent, were accepted. He profiles the kinds of rewards cards that issuers are now promoting in their efforts to gain new cardholders.