Fifth Third Processing Solutions has announced that "Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain, has signed a new, multi-year contract for credit card processing services to all of its retail locations throughout the United States."

In an article titled 'Restaurants Test Table Card Readers", Greg Bluestein writes for the Associated Press about pay at the table POS systems - very popular in a number of markets outside the US but slow to catch on here. Terminal suppliers now see an opportunity - increased concern about mag stripe card skimming - and feel that the time may be right for pay at the table to take off.

Heartland Payment Systems has announced it has announced a strategic relationship with Bremer Financial Corporation (Bremer Bank), based in St. Paul, MN. "Initially, more than 1,500 of Bremer's current merchant clients will be converted to Heartland's processing system. Heartland and Bremer will also focus on a joint business development program that leverages both companies' regional customer bases for new business and cross selling opportunities."

eBay has announced that it is simplifying the PayPal Promotional Financing offers displayed on eBay auctions by removing the more advanced (complicated?) financing offers and replacing them with a standard simplified financing offer. eBay says the more advanced offers had low adoption while the standard offer has shown a positive effect on sales. PayPal's promotional financing is offered through a partnership with GE Money.

Carolyn Said writes for the San Francisco Chronicle about San Francisco-based startup Rex & Co. - short for Real Estate and Equity Exchange. Rex allows home owners to sell a share of the future appreciation potential in their homes in exchange for an immediate cash payment to the home owner. According to the companay, "the REX Agreement is not a loan, but a real estate investment agreement in the form of a purchase option. It gives homeowners a portion of their home’s equity in cash today—in exchange for the right of REX & Co. to share in a specified percentage of the future increase or decrease in the home’s value."

Heather Timmons writes for the New York Times about some consumer reactions in India to credit card fees. "Credit card rates and fees frustrate borrowers around the world, but Indian consumers have something special to complain about. Interest rates average more than 30 percent, and can soar to over 50 percent, while charges tacked on for late payments are sometimes a hefty 20 percent of the overall balance."

The Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has published "An Update on Trends in the Debit Card Market" (PDF) by Julia S. Cheney that documents a workshop held at the center in March. The paper describes trends and issues affecting the debit card market with respect to performance metrics, networks and interchange, debit rewards, and debit card fraud.

Bloomberg reports on an interview with eBay CEO Meg Whitman: "PayPal is a huge home run,'' Whitman, EBay's chief executive officer, said in an interview. "It's the most innovative Web payment product out there and has done really well, even in the face of a little bit of a challenge from Google.''

TextPayMe, one of the first person-to-person mobile payment services to launch (PN first covered TextPayMe on December 13, 2005), has recently enabled users to link a Visa or MasterCard to their TextPayMe account for the purpose of funding payments. TextPayMe says it is currently "designed for personal use only" and caps the amount of money that can be sent or received at $500 per month per account - but the company says it is "working to include a merchant account feature to allow our users to surpass the initial payment limits." TextPayMe is currently offering a $5 referral bonus for referring new members to its mobile payment service.

Becky Yerak writes for the Chicago Tribune about a new ING Direct Cafe opening soon at the southwest corner of Chestnut and Wabash Streets in Chicago. More info about the ING Direct Cafes is available on the ING Direct web site.

Late last month, the US Government Accountability Office issued a study report titled "SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS - Use is Widespread and Protection Could Be Improved" (PDF).

The new issue of the ABA Banking Journal has an article titled "Still in the payments game?" (PDF) written by Lauren Bielski. The cover of the Journal asks whether payments is the lost franchise for banks?

The Government Accountability Office has published a new report titled "Personal Information: Data Breaches Are Frequent, but Evidence of Resulting Identity Theft Is Limited; However, the Full Extent Is Unknown" (PDF).

Carly Weeks writes for the Vancouver Sun about increasing merchant concerns about chargebacks -

Jane Larson writes for the Arizona Republic about the acquisition of EFD/eFunds Corp. by Fidelity National Information Services announced last week and what that might mean for jobs in the Scottsdale headquarters of EFD.

Contactless News reports that "India's E3India is researching and planning on releasing a new mobile-commerce product, V-Cash, to enable payments to vendors directly through cellphones."

• MasterCard, Major League Baseball Properties and Major League Baseball Advanced Media Team up to Fulfill Lucky Fans’ Baseball Dreams

Tamara E. Holmes writes for Bankrate.com about one of the potential side effects of being able to pay for fast food with credit cards - a recent survey said that "77 percent say they can buy exactly what they want because they are not limited by the cash they have available." On that note, enjoy your Fourth of July BBQ today!

Liz Moyer writes for Forbes.com about so-called elite credit cards - including Bank of America's new Accolades American Express card. She points out that "Amex Black (Centurion) carries an annual fee of $2,500 and a minimum annual purchase threshold of $250,000."

Vodafone in partnership with Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks has announced publication of a new policy report titled ‘The Transformational Potential of M-Transactions’ (PDF) that suggests a "new regulatory framework is needed to encourage financial transactions by mobile phones and transform access to financial services in developing countries."

The Payment System Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has published a briefing article by Terri Bradford titled "Stored-Value Cards: A Card for Every Reason..." (PDF) that discusses the various uses of stored-value cards and the different degrees of their growth and acceptance. Bradford is also the author of "Paper, Plastic.....or Phone?" (PDF), a briefing about mobile payments and banking published last December.

David Leonhart writes for the New York Times on the E-ZPass economy - and just how convenient it is. But he worries about the downside: "The old frustrations that came with cash also brought a hidden benefit: they forced you to notice that you were spending money. With electronic money, it’s much easier to be carefree."

On that note, we're totally ready for Independence Day in the United States. Hope you all have a wonderful July 4th holiday!

Jacqueline Chilton has recently joined the team of payments strategy consultants at Glenbrook Partners. Jacqueline brings over fourteen years of consulting experience and extensive knowledge in market assessment, business case development, and product strategy across multiple disciplines including payment cards, cash management, transaction clearing, procurement and technology infrastructure.

We've recently enhanced the Google search engine here on Payments News to include other payments-related sites in the search results - in addition to Payments News pages. If you're searching for something payments related, be sure to search from Payments News - you'll have much higher odds of finding relevant links as compared to a general Google search! You'll find the Payments News search box in the upper right corner of every page.

The July/August issue of BAI's Banking Strategies magazine is now available online. Articles include the cover story "Surviving in the Middle" (a look at BancorpSouth), "Attracting Deposits from Small Biz", "The Top 10 Lessons of Katrina", and "Bill Payment: Putting Banks Back in Control".

FYI, over the weekend we made a few tweaks to Payments News so that both Apple iPhone and Blackberry users can now easily read the stories posted here every day. To do so, just go to the main Payments News url: http://www.paymentsnews.com using either device. Enjoy!

The American Bankers Association's Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin reports that credit card loan delinquencies declined the first quarter of 2007 to 4.41 percent of all accounts compared to 4.56 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 (seasonally adjusted).

Swift Financial , M&I Bank and Metavante Corporation have announced agreements facilitating a new business venture that will offer loan and deposit products to small businesses nationwide.

The AP reports on how the use of debit cards is growing "especially fast among young adults."

Google Checkout has announced new digital goods delivery support - described as "an improved user experience tailored specifically to digital goods. Now merchants will have option of tagging an item as digital within the shopping cart and specifying details about how it should be delivered."