Audrey Blackwell writes for the Okeechobee News about the authorization holds that debit card issuers often impose on cardholder transactions when purchasing gasoline.

Constantine Cannon, Lead Counsel for United States merchants in the Visa Check/MasterMoney Antitrust Litigation, CV 96-5238 has announced that it has "directed the Claims Administrator to mail checks to Class Members for overcharges on Visa and MasterCard signature debit and credit card transactions during the period October 1992 to July 2003. These payments are being made to Class Members whose claim forms had been submitted and approved for payment by March 31, 2006. This distribution of 494,000 payments involves more than $600 million."

MasterCard Worldwide has announced a new consumer promotion entitled the "MasterCard Win 500 Flights Sweepstakes," offering "MasterCard cardholders the opportunity to win a grand prize of 500 round-trip airline tickets to any destination in the world." MasterCard PayPass cardholders get a double entry into the promotion when they use their contactless cards.

eBay has updated its Accepted Payments Policy to add Google's recently launched Google Checkout service to the list of payment services not permitted on eBay.

The current issue of The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law has an article titled "Better than Cash? Global Proliferation of Payment Cards and Consumer Protection Policy" (PDF) by Arnold S. Rosenberg, Assistant Professor of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in which he suggests that the "American use of credit cards is not normative" and is, in fact, a global anomaly.

BankServ has announced DepositNow! A/R for QuickBooks - "a new system that lets QuickBooks users deposit checks to their bank accounts electronically from their offices and automatically update their accounting records at the same time. It is the first commercially available remote deposit product that is integrated with Intuit's QuickBooks software, which is currently in use by more than 3 million small businesses in North America."

Lisa E. Phillips writes for eMarketer about consumer attitudes toward debit cards and debit card rewards programs based upon the recently announced TNS' Financial Services Consumer Credit Card Program Study.

eBay has announced that PayPal President Jeff Jordan "plans to leave his position in the fall to spend more time with his family" and that Rajiv Dutta will replace Jordan as President of PayPal.

• The Register: MasterCard succumbs to rebranding madness
  
• Peoples Bank of China: Bank cards for migrants
  
• Increased Electronic Payments Processing Draws Violations and Penalties, Says ePayments Corp.
  
• CIO India: Nokia JV to Secure Near-Field Communication
  
• Card Technology: Visa Plans Contactless Trial In London
  
• Financial Cryptography: Dynamic Data Authentication cards may address the UK Chip&Pin woes
  
• Digital World Tokyo: The rise and rise of DoCoMo’s credit-card IC phones
  
• TowerGroup: Financial Institutions Must Preempt Potential Security Breaches Caused by Bluetooth-Enabled Devices
  
• Western Union(R) Announces a Strategic Relationship with the BANK OF AFRICA Group
  
• Alliance Data Signs Multi-Year Agreement with Friedman's Jewelers, the Third-Largest U.S. Jewelry Retailer