Members of the Canadian payments industry - Interac Association, MasterCard Canada Inc., Visa Canada and many of their respective card issuers, payment processors and merchants -- have announced "the beginning of Canada's migration to chip-enabled debit and credit cards, Automated Banking Machines (ABMs) and merchant terminals starting with a trial in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario."

BB&T has announced it is the first customer of a new partnership between ClairMail and mFoundry for mobile banking and mobile payment services. BB&T said that its "three-phase rollout of the new service is set to begin next month and is expected to be completed in the first quarter when a full menu of mobile banking options will be available to BB&T clients. The services include two-way mobile messaging, mobile Web access and mobile banking applications."

First Data Corp. has announced the launch of "a new merchant acquiring business called POSNET to serve merchants of all sizes in Canada."

Financial institutions connected to the SVPCO Image Payments Network have begun forming new correspondent clearing relationships that are spurring the growth of image exchange among regional institutions and further reducing check processing costs.

Bank of America has announced the re-launch of the BankAmericard. According to the bank, "the original BankAmericard credit card, the first nationally accepted bank credit card, changed the landscape of financial opportunity and convenience for consumers. Today's BankAmericard Rewards Visa card builds on that heritage of innovation, offering one of the industry's richest and most flexible rewards programs with no annual fee."

Aneace Haddad links to this article on Gulfnews.com that reports that some gas station chains in Dubai have stopped accepting credit cards because of an increase in merchant fees.

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