PricewaterhouseCoopers has published "Precious Plastic 2007 - Consumer Credit in the UK", a study of the UK consumer credit market. The PwC research concludes that "credit card margins continued to fall in 2006, as the industry came under unprecedented scrutiny from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the Competition Commission and the Financial Services Authority."

Dave Birch has posted a two part podcast on the Digital Money blog interviewing Tim Jones, one of the original creators of Mondex - out of National Westminster Bank - and Simpay - the first significant European mobile payments consortium. The two podcasts are well worth a listen.

Building an Edge, IBM's Financial Services newsletter, features an article titled "Dare to Be Different" (PDF) by Sunny Banerjea, Cormac Petit, John White, and Robin Kahn that sweeps across the real world of retail banking and urges retail bankers that it will be necessary to "pursue uncommon innovation to stand out from the crowd and adapt successfully to marketplace demands." This article provides unusually comprehensive and tasty selection of global innovation in retail banking.

Blackhawk Network, a subsidiary of Safeway, has announced an alliance with McDonald’s and P2W to sell McDonald's Arch Cards in 1,500 U.S. Safeway stores including Dominick’s, Vons, Pavilions, Genuardi’s, Randalls, Tom Thumb and Carrs.

Online Resources has announced CardHQ, "an online gift card store that enables consumers to purchase retail gift cards through their secure online banking and bill payment applications. Available in time for the holiday season, the new service also provides Online Resources’ client financial institutions access to the $40 billion gift card market."

CyberSource has announced the results of its 8th Annual CyberSource Survey of eCommerce fraud - reporting that U.S. merchants will lose as much as $3 billion in eCommerce revenue to fraud in 2006, up from $2.8 billion last year. As a percent of revenue, fraud losses will be slightly less this year-merchants expect to lose 1.4% of revenue, down from 1.6% the year before, and 1.8% in 2004.

eFunds has announced it is partnering with IBM to deliver new payments management solutions and a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework to banking and financial services clients. According to the companies, "the partnership will help global customers transform business processes and capitalize on emerging opportunities quickly in a rapidly changing payments market."

CheckFree has introduced a suite of Online Channel Optimization Solutions the company says is "designed to help financial institutions expand their reach and generate opportunities to acquire new customers at reduced cost, build deeper customer relationships to increase retention, and drive revenue growth and profitability by leveraging up-sell and cross-sell opportunities."

Intuit has announced a new suite of software applications that the company says "will help financial institutions win new online customers by simplifying the online account opening process."

First Data's Debit Services division has announced an agreement with Interactive Financial Services Group (IFSG) to provide a school and charity rewards feature as a component of First Data's Debit Rewards program.

San Francisco-based New Resource Bank, a new bank focusing on serving entrepreneurs and sustainable businesses, has announced its opening with the launch of its on-line banking platform, www.newresourcebank.com. The new bank says it is "responding to a market demand for more customized banking and by focusing on a growing wave of green or sustainable businesses and the people who value them."

MasterCard Worldwide has announced a new rewards program that it says "empowers banks to better leverage customer relationships and increase customer loyalty based on the entire banking relationship. The new relationship rewards program creates opportunities to reach new levels of personalization through rewards that meet specific customer interests. It also enables banks to roll multiple lines of products into one rewards account, helping to deepen relationships."

NACHA has released resource materials that businesses and financial institutions can use to begin for training customer service staff about the new ACH check conversion application. Enabled by new NACHA rules that become effective March 16, 2007, back office conversion (BOC) allows businesses and billers that accept checks at the point-of-sale or at manned bill payment locations to convert eligible checks to ACH debits in a centralized location.

ChinaTechNews reports that "Beijing Liandong Youshi (UMPay), an affiliate of China Mobile (CHL) which is responsible for the company's mobile phone banking service, has announced that China Mobile has reached an agreement with 19 domestic banks to jointly promote a mobile phone SMS-based banking service. With this new service, which is called "Yin Xin Tong", mobile phone users will be able to obtain financal information through their mobile phones and wireless POS by sending text messages or logging in through GPRS and WAP."

Ann Carrns reports for the Wall St. Journal that nearly 1,100 banks now offer health savings accounts, "more than triple the number at the end of 2005." Carrns also reports that Bank of America is planning to introduce "a new credit card, in partnership with major health plans, that will let holders earn rewards points that convert automatically into cash in their HSAs."

American Express has announced the launch of First Collection, "a new, distinctively elegant collection of premium partners and offers exclusively available to American Express Platinum Card and Centurion Card members through the Membership Rewards program. This is the first time that the Membership Rewards program offers rewards and partners specifically for American Express Platinum and Centurion Card members." Kathy Chu reports for USA Today on the new program.

Metavante has announced a reciprocal agreement with Yodlee "that infuses Metavante electronic bill payment with Yodlee’s proprietary credit and debit card payment functionality, and integrates Yodlee solutions with Metavante’s electronic bill payment processing capabilities."

American Express Business Travel has announced the launch of an “Intelligent Online Marketplace” for travel and related business services.

JCB is holding its 10th JCB World Conference from November 13th to 15th in Honolulu with a theme of 'Working
Together to Shape the Future of Payments'.

• Pay By Touch Pin Debit Solution Recognized for Banking Technology Innovation
• Diebold Consumer Study Reveals That Advanced ATM Features are the Key to Winning More Bank Retail Customers
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• Hypercom Launches Customer Authentication Bank Automation Initiative
• Ruesch International and The BANCServices Group, Inc. Announce Alliance to Deliver Global Payment Solutions to Financial Institutions
• Corillian Unveils Next Generation Online Banking ASP Solution for Credit Unions
• eFunds and U.S. Bank Sign Multi-Year Account Origination Agreement
• Multi-Factor Authentication Launches for USERS’ Credit Union Clients
• Computerworld: Bank of America logs most downtime among top U.S. banks
• Bharosa to Provide Strong, Convenient Security for Customer Authentication to Sterling Financial Corporation
• Alliance Data Signs Multi-Year Agreement With Specialty Retailer The Dunlap Company
• TransUnion Increases Customer Acquisition Opportunities for Lending Organizations with Universe Expansion Service
• Major Manufacturer of Remote Deposit Capture Equipment Partners With BLM Technologies to Meet Increased Demand for Check 21 Solutions
• IP Commerce Joins Interop Vendor Alliance with Microsoft and Other Industry Leaders