We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Scott Galit has
  been named Executive Vice President of the Meta Payment Systems unit at Meta Financial Group. According to Meta, "Galit is a pioneer in the prepaid card industry and most recently was Senior Vice President of Global Prepaid Products at MasterCard Worldwide. Prior to joining MasterCard, Scott was SVP and GM of First Data Prepaid Solutions."

In a press release today, Visa announced what it termed "significant milestones for its innovative, new payment technologies, adding a major issuer (WaMu) and merchant (BP) to the list of organizations adopting Visa payment innovations, while preparing to launch an integrated marketing campaign to increase consumer awareness for Visa innovations." Visa also announced it has "developed a global name for its contactless payment feature: Visa payWave."

WaMu has announced it will "begin testing contactless payment cards that provide increased convenience and speed for cardholders during the merchant checkout process. The contactless test will be conducted across both credit and debit card platforms in partnership with Visa payWave and MasterCard PayPass contactless programs."

MasterCard Advisors has announced several enhancements to its "Segmented Loyalty Programs, which enable issuers to design customized promotions to reach highly targeted groups of cardholders and thereby encourage card usage."

JupiterResearch says it "has found that despite renewed efforts on the part of financial institutions, overall interest in mobile banking services is limited. Just eight percent of online consumers who own a cell phone are interested in using mobile browsing to check account balances."

In a report titled "Report to the Congress on the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act of 2003" (PDF), the Federal Reserve reports "on the effect of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act on the nation's check-collection system. Assesses the need for modifications to the funds-availability requirements established in and pursuant to the Expedited Funds Availability Act (EFAA). Based on the Board's extensive survey of the banking industry and supplemented with other information from official and industry sources."

RSA has announced "an expanded Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Solution portfolio, a suite of products and services that help enable customers to answer the most challenging IT security technology challenges associated with the PCI DSS. As part of the RSA PCI Solution, RSA also announced a new blueprint for promoting compliance by discovering data and infrastructure, assessing risk, enacting remediation and ensuring sustained controls."

TransUnion and Edgar, Dunn & Company have announced initial findings from the PaymentDynamics 2007 Preferred Payments Study on consumer payment preferences, attitudes and behavior - concluding "that more consumers prefer debit cards than any other type of payment for point of sale purchases."

Bank of America Corporation has announced a definitive agreement to purchase ABN AMRO North America
Holding Company, parent of LaSalle Bank Corporation and its subsidiaries, from ABN AMRO Holding NV. According to the bank, "the combination of LaSalle and Bank of America creates a leading banking franchise in metropolitan Chicago, the No. 3 banking market in the United States, and in Michigan."

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• Dynamic Card Solutions Awarded Patent for CardWizard’s Enterprise Design
• FierceWireless Names Obopay as One of Its 'Fierce 15' Wireless Companies of 2007
• First Data International Signs WestJet in Canada
• Nearly 62% of Identity Theft Victims Are Notified of Crime by Financial Services Company, Says Identity Theft Assistance Center
• paybox and Radius-ED Team to Spearhead Delivery of Global Mobile Services With One SMS Short Code
• DoCoMo to Offer New Mobile Credit Card
• New Cranfield Report Highlights Banks are Failing to Measure Future Performance Drivers
• Wells Fargo Goes Beyond Funding With New Home Equity Program