The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation), and The Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF) have released the first public findings of a study titled "Mobile Phone Banking and Low Income Customers: Evidence from South Africa" (PDF) that studied on how low-income individuals in South Africa use mobile phone banking ("m-banking"). The findings show that m-banking can be up to a third cheaper for customers than the current banking alternatives, and users value the service for its security and easy use. However, this study shows more needs to be done to address negative perceptions about the cost and effectiveness of mobile phones and m-banking. The study concludes "with millions of mobile phones already in poor people’s hands, CGAP, UNF, and VGF see tremendous potential in the power of network operators, banks, and new entrants to deliver financial services through this channel.

Bankrate.com takes a look at some positive (for consumers) trends in the US payment card market including the continued growth in debit cards, the use of home equity loans, higher minimum payments allowing faster repayment of credit card debt, prepaid cards, no-fee cards, revised reward programs, and savings cards.

Dave Birch writes on the Digital Money blog about a recent study of the card industry by Diamond Management and Technology Consultants that asks whether the card industry's investment in contactless POS deployments might just be setting the stage for others to leverage those capabilities. Dave, who's giving a talk on the subject later today, says "All of the effort going in to migrating to contactless POS creates an environment for cash replacement: we're all agreed on that. The question is who will take most advantage of that: Citibank or Vodafone, Starbucks or Disney? Or even PayPal."

Heather Scoffield writes for Canada's Globe and Mail about recent analysis conducted by Steve Chan, economist for TD Bank, exploring whether there's really a "gift card effect" associated with growth in post-holiday season retail sales.

Google has announced that it is giving Google Checkout merchants a big holiday gift: processing all of their Google Checkout sales for free beginning today through the end of 2006 - whether the merchant is a Google Adwords advertiser or not. Google says "There's no limit: we're processing all of your Checkout sales for free" from November 8 through December 31.

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