China UnionPay Data (CUP Data) and Arcot Systems have announced a partnership that the two companies say will help minimize Internet transaction fraud. Under the licensing and development agreement, CUP Data will use Arcot’s TransFort family of solutions in the joint development of a common risk management outsourcing service for marketing to card issuers in China.

Fidelity National Information Services and EFD/eFunds have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby FIS will acquire EFD in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion.

Aneace Haddad of Welcome Real-Time blogs about a recent Gartner report titled "Banks' Retail Payment Operations at a Tipping Point" saying that he found it so interesting that he "obtained the right for you to view it." Aneace cites a couple of comments from the report suggesting what bankers should do including "Introduce PIVAS [Payment Information Value-Added Services] to reduce pricing pressure from merchants and initiate a virtuous circle for retail payment operations. Merchants must actively support card programs and emerging payment solutions, but they are challenging the pricing model for the interchange. It's time to introduce services such as PIVAS to convince them of the real value of bank-sponsored retail payment networks.”

The Age reports from Melbourne that "the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is currently considering reducing to zero the fees banks charge to process transactions made using other banks' cards, also known as interchange fees."

Philip Lowe, Assistant Governor (Financial System) of the Reserve Bank of Australia, spoke earlier today on the topic of "Reform of Australia's Payments System: The 2007/08 Review" at the 4th International Consumer Credit Card Summit being held in Sydney, Australia. In his speech, he noted that "merchants’ acceptance decisions and their ability to influence how payments are made by their customers can potentially play an important role in influencing the competitive dynamics in the payment systems."

Wells Fargo's Board of Directors has named John G. Stumpf, President and Chief Operating Officer, to be the Company's Chief Executive Officer effective immediately. Stumpf, who retains the title of President, succeeds Dick Kovacevich, who continues as Chairman.

Wells Fargo and Visa USA have announced the launch of an "extensive mobile pilot to test consumer mobile payments and services. The pilot has three phases to help Wells Fargo and Visa better understand how consumers will use mobile payment and service options on mobile devices equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology."

APACS, the UK payments association, and ABTA, the UK travel association, have published a consumer advice guide - Payments Abroad (PDF) - providing UK consumers advice on how to make their trip overseas safer and easier.

JCB has announced the appointment of Tamio Takakura as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective immediately. Mr. Takakura succeeds Hiroya Nobuhara who had served as JCB's President and CEO for the past 4 years.

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We have received news of the following recent management changes:

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  Ronald G. Mazursky has been named Managing Director at Novantas, a customer science and revenue strategy provider. Mazursky was formerly a Director at Edgar, Dunn & Co.