Betsy Stark reports for ABC News about the growth in the debt burden of American consumers over the last decade - "while the average family's income grew by 9 percent, credit card debt has increased 81 percent; student loan debt is up 137 percent and mortgage debt jumped 154 percent" - and profiles 27 year old Erin Browne who, Stark reports, "like many Americans, she can't stop spending."

John Poirier reports for Reuters that "U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers this week will propose restricting ownership of banks by commercial companies in a legislative push to derail the efforts of retailing giants to move into financial services."

Digital Transactions reports that the executive in charge of Google Checkout, Benjamin Ling, has PayPal under consideration as one of the payment methods that the new service may eventually support. Ling's also critical of eBay's decision to not allow eBay sellers to use Google Checkout as a payment option.

Kathy Chu reports for USA TODAY that consumer groups are up in arms about a new Federal Reserve report that finds little evidence that card issuers are offering credit to consumers "indiscriminately" - saying that the report is "unduly protective of banks." See last week's Payments News story for a link to the PDF version of the report.

Jaikumar Vijayan reports for Computerworld that "Visa USA and MasterCard International will release new security rules in the next 30 to 60 days for all organizations that handle credit card data" according to comments made last week by Eduardo Perez, vice president of corporate risk and compliance at Visa.

Li Weitao reports for China Daily on the mobile payments field trial launched last month on Xiamen by China Mobile, Nokia, Philips and E-Tong Card. According to a recent survey by ACNielson in Shanghai, more than 80 per cent of respondents hoped to integrate banks cards and smart cards into their mobile phones.

Pay By Touch has announced Paycheck Secure 8.0 that allows retailers to electronically deposit all checks at once with the touch of a button. Paycheck Secure 8.0 enhances existing technology that enables fingerprint authorization for customers cashing government or payroll checks.   » Continue Reading

Metavante has announced it is partnering with Longs Drugs to provide automated, electronic substantiation of over-the-counter flexible spending account (FSA)-eligible purchases for customers using Metavante's MBI Benefits Card.   » Continue Reading

Stuart Elliott reports for the New York Times on plans by the Condé Nast magazine Lucky to give readers the chance to buy products from 18 companies by sending messages from their cellphones in a program called "Live Buy It" that uses a service from PayPal known as PayPal Mobile Text2Buy. According to the article, "one reason the promotion is using the PayPal Mobile Text2Buy service is that in a survey of Lucky readers, 83 percent said they were familiar with PayPal."

Jayne O'Donnell writes for USA TODAY about renewed retailer interest in private label store credit cards as part of their efforts to minimize the merchant fees paid on traditional bank cards.

Jack Davis reports for the San Jose Mercury News that GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm and VeriFone's largest shareholder has been selling portions of its interest in the point-of-sale equipment supplier. VeriFone's chief executive, Douglas Bergeron, has also been a seller.

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