eWeek's Steve Bryant writes in his Google Watch blog about the implications he sees from a Google entry into payments - what the media has been calling GBuy and speculating is planned for announcement on Wednesday.

Are you a payments professional living in the San Francisco Bay Area? The next meeting of BayPay, the payments professionals' networking group for the San Francisco area is being held this Thursday, June 29, beginning at 6 PM in Mountain View. This meeting's topic is small/micro payments - speakers are Mark Friedman, CEO of Peppercoin and Doug Knopper, CEO of Bitpass. There's ample time alloted at each meeting for networking with other local payments professionals. If you're not already a BayPay member and are interested in attending this Thursday's meeting, please contact us for more information and details about meeting location, etc.

Javelin Strategy & Research has announced the results of the 2006 Annual Javelin Consumer Payment Poll commissioned by PaymentOne - concluding that the majority of online consumers would buy more if safer and more convenient payment options were offered. Javelin reports that the Payment Poll responders said they would each spend $960 more per year if better payment options were available online, which, based on over 15 million active online buyers, translates to $14.4 billion of lost revenue opportunity for digital merchants.

TSYS Prepaid has announced an agreement with MoneyGram Payment Systems, Inc., to provide real-time loading for TSYS-processed prepaid Visa and MasterCard cards at MoneyGram's 26,000 money transfer locations in the U.S.

Comerica Bank has announced Comerica ACH Positive Pay, a new fraud protection service that will enable commercial customers to accept or reject Automated Clearing House (ACH) items before they are posted to their accounts.

The US Senate Committee on the Judiciary earlier this month had announced it would be holding a hearing tomorrow on the subject of credit card interchange fees. According to the Committee's website this afternoon, that hearing has been postponed - and no new date has been set for the hearing.

Springwise.com features Mobo, a New York-based company that lets customers order food remotely and pay for their food order via SMS on the mobile phone. "Every Mobo restaurant has a separate Mobo Pick Up counter, so when their order is ready, Mobo users can walk straight to the counter, state their name and last four digits of their phone number, and pick up their food."

Red Herring has published an interview with Peppercoin CEO Mark Friedman.

Cellfire has announced that its free mobile coupon service is now available to cell phone users across the country. According to the company, "household-name retailers such as T.G.I. Friday's and Hollywood
Video are among the partners deploying the money-saving solution to consumers."

Giesecke & Devrient and Nokia have announced an agreement to form a joint venture to provide services to the NFC ecosystem by enabling consumer applications, such as credit cards or transport tickets, to be securely and easily downloaded over-the-air to NFC enabled mobile devices.

SVPCO - Electronic Clearing Services, the electronic check and check image exchange business of The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C., has announced the availability of SVPCO Gateway DTA, a new, low-cost option for gaining access to the SVPCO Image Payments Network.

Broadcom has announced the world's first secure processor with integrated radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, as part of the company's Trusted Authentication Initiative. According to Broadcom, the new device is "designed to secure personal authentication transactions associated with physical access, logical access (into a PC or network) and contactless payment applications." Broadcom also said it is partnering with RSA Security to embed its RSA SecurID technology within the BCM5890 secure processor.

Experian has announced the results of a new study that examines the correlation between a small-business owner's personal credit score and his or her commercial credit score.

Chad Terhune reports for the Wall St. Journal on plans by the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co. to "equip 1,000 vending machines in the Philadelphia area to accept credit and debit cards" - including MasterCard's PayPass contactless cards.

David Breitkopf writes for the American Banker about the effect that merchants who "steer" their customers at the POS to use PIN-based debit have on the interchange revenue received by the card-issuing bank. Brietkopf cites industry analysts who report that issuers are concerned about the steering merchants are doing on debit transactions. To help reduce the revenue lost from steering, some issuing banks encourage their cardholders to prefer signature-based debit transactions over PIN-based by offering rewards programs.

• Wells Fargo President, COO Stumpf Elected to Company's Board
  
• U.S. Bank Joins MoneyPass ATM Network, Gives Customers Surcharge-Free Access to 12,000 MoneyPass ATMs
  
• JPMorgan Chase Opens New Image Deposit Center in Shanghai; Center Helps Financial Institutions in China Lower Costs Without Changing Cash Letter Operations
  
• Bank of America To Turn Dusty Sandlots Into Fields of Dreams Through Its Keep the Change(TM) Savings Program
  
• xTech Acquires The Credit Index
  
• AmbironTrustWave and Fifth Third Processing Solutions Partner to Bring PCI Compliance Services to Merchants
  
• Guardian (UK): Consumers cut card debt
  
• JCB International Appoints Kenji Seto as Senior Deputy President