Kathleen Kingsbury reports for Time on biometrics as passwords. Kingsbury reports that "keystroke authentication is the newest offering from the field of biometrics--the measurement and analysis of unique physical or behavioral characteristics--and it's accurate 98% of the time."

Over the last few weeks, Wells Fargo has been telling its online banking customers that they might notice some changes on the Wells Fargo website.

Krissah Williams reports for the Washington Post on microlending and microfinance - to entrepreneurs and small businesses in the USA - focusing primarily on the work of the Enterprise Development Group.

The latest Nilson Report has arrived featuring its annual look at US personal consumption expenditures and the market share of cards and other electronic payments vs. paper (subscription only). The issue also has articles discussing merchant litigation over interchange fees and display cards.

Business Week's Jeffrey Gangemi interviews cybersecurity consultant Howard Schmidt (former White House cybersecurity adviser and current president and CEO of R&H Security Consulting).

InComm has announced that its new payment kiosks are "enabling retailers to offer their customers a self-service solution to pay utility or wireless bills, top up prepaid wireless, buy new songs for mp3 players and more."

If you're reading Payments News on a handheld device (like my new Blackberry 8703e!), you might enjoy browsing the Payments News headlines using our much simplified "news river view". This view displays the headlines for each story posted over the last week or so - and the latest stories are always at the top. You'll find the new Payments News "news river view" at: http://www.paymentsnews.com/river - comments welcome! There are several other of these "news rivers" available - including BBCriver, NYTimesRiver from Dave Winer - as well as several from Gabe Riveria for tech geeks.

Online Banking Report has published a new analysis of Web 2.0 features as they apply to banking websites titled "Bank 2.0: Remaking your financial website for a Web 2.0 world". The report "covers the increasingly common use of blogs, feeds, web video, and other interactive features" - explaining which features are most important for financial institutions and how they can be profitably implemented.

Chase Card Services, Marriott International and Visa have announced the launch of the Marriott Rewards Platinum Visa Card in Canada.

I4 Commerce has announced that it has secured $640 million in a corporate debt financing from Citigroup's
Corporate and Investment Banking division. The company, parent of Bill Me Later, says the debt proceeds will be used to fund the continued rapid growth of I4 Commerce's consumer loan portfolio and for general working capital.

Bruce Schneier blogs about the RFID Guardian Project at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. The project has published a paper titled "A Platform for RFID Security and Privacy Administration" (PDF) that "presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of the RFID Guardian, the first-ever unified platform for RFID security and privacy administration. The RFID Guardian resembles an “RFID firewall”, enabling individuals to monitor and control access to their RFID tags by combining a standard-issue RFID reader with unique RFID tag emulation capabilities."

Financial Insights is holding a webinar tomorrow at 11 AM Eastern time titled "Inside the Mind of the Consumer: Understanding the Process of Financial Decision Making". Aaron McPherson, research director, Payments, will be presenting the results of a recent consumer survey on emerging payment methods that "provides a valuable source of objective data on how consumers are using products such as payroll cards, benefits cards, and online bill payment. And learn about our expanded study scope for 2007 on why consumers choose to pay with one method over another and how they weigh the importance of cost, convenience, fraud risk, and other factors in their decision-making."

Tony Adams writes for the Colombus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer about how this year has "been a bittersweet year for Phil Tomlinson, chairman and chief executive officer of the credit-card and data processing firm TSYS." Adams interviews Tomlinson on his plans for TSYS in the year ahead, Synovus' majority ownership stake in TSYS, and more including his worries about continued industry consolidation. It's a great interview.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Visa and MasterCard are upset with the Reserve Bank of Australia's plan to conduct an internal review of the payment systems reforms it began five years ago - suggesting that an independent review is required.

Bob Tedeschi reports for the New York Times that this holiday season fraudsters are shifting their focus - reporting that "industry leaders say smaller online retailers, and those with strong gift-certificate sales, are being especially hard hit."

• Safety-Kleen Selects BancTec for Accounts Payable Solution
• Hyatt Place Installs NCR Self-Check-In Kiosks
• Union Bank Expands Nationwide with New Suite of Cash Management Products