Celent has published a new report, Standards: The Pony Express to e-Payments that discusses advances made in developing payment-related standards for commercial/wholesale payments.

U.S. Bank has announced that it "is prepared to meet the needs of retailers and other customers who wish to take advantage of check electronification opportunities for point-of-sale (POS) payments when NACHA’s check conversion rules change for Back Office Conversion (BOC) on March 16, 2007." The bank has launched a new enhancement to U.S. Bank Electronic Check Service designed to meet the needs of multi-lane retailers by eliminating the investment in check imaging technology at the point of sale.   » Continue Reading

The Mobile Payment Forum, a global cross-industry alliance of key organizations from the mobile and financial industries dedicated to the advancement of mobile commerce, has published its Proximity Payment Issues & Recommendations Document.   » Continue Reading

Joris Evers writes for CNET's News.com about plans by PayPal to make available key fobs to its users to help authenticate themselves at logon and reduce the threat from on-going phishing attacks. Evers reports that PayPal plans to charge personal PayPal users $5 for the key fob but will be giving them away to PayPal business account users.

Eric Grover, a partner at Intrepid Ventures, has written a viewpoint commentary for the American Banker on the options that Discover Card will have to build its business and expand globally - after its upcoming spin-off from Morgan Stanley. In his comments, Grover suggests that part of Discover's problem in signing up issuing partners is its lower interchange fee - suggesting that Discover "should push harder to close its interchange gap with MasterCard and Visa, enhancing its profitability for bank and retailer issuers, fueling rewards, and thereby increasing issuance and cardholder spending."

Metavante has announced the acquisition of Valutec Card Solutions of Franklin, Tenn. The company will continue to operate under the Valutec name, and will become a Metavante company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.   » Continue Reading

• Smart Payment Solutions and Automated Financials Group Merge
• Hypercom Acquires Technology and Assets of TPI Software LLC