• Postal Inspectors Bust Credit Card Fraud Ring, Cincinnati Targeted
• Science Daily: The New Face Of Identity Protection: You
• Aneace's Blog: How focusing on acquisition features (rather than loyalty) can lead to better protection of interchange fees

Buxfer, an online money tracking service, has announced they will be using Amazon's new Flexible Payment Service to make online payments between users in the US - and they're offering it free of charge (certain limitations) through the end of August. Going forward, Buxfer will be charging the receiver of funds for the payment by passing through the fees Amazon charges them for FPS. Buxfer only supports payments funded from the sender's Amazon Payments account balance or from the sender's bank account - but not from a sender's credit card (presumably because Amazon FPS, like PayPal, does not support personal account holders receiving credit card payments). See their blog post here. Jim Bruene also reports on Buxfer on his Netbanker blog.

FreshBooks, a "a provider of web based unaccounting services that help service based businesses look professional", will also soon be launching the use of Amazon's Flexible Payment Service. Their blog post tells the whole story.

The developers of JungleDisk, an application that allows you to store files securely on Amazon's S3 storage service, have introduced JunglePayments, a service built on top of Amazon's new Flexible Payment Service. JunglePayments "wraps" Amazon FPS and allows web site developers to quickly create links that can be used by their web site users for making payments using Amazon FPS. Here's a description of how it works.

Amazon has introduced Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) - calling it "the first payments service designed from the ground up specifically for developers. The set of web services APIs allows the movement of money between any two entities, humans or computers. It is built on top of Amazon's reliable and scalable payment infrastructure." The service has been introduced in "Limited Beta". More background - on the story behind Amazon FPS and some of the companies that will be using Amazon FPS - is available on the Amazon Web Services Blog.

• Southwest Gas Powers Payment Processing With BancTec Solutions
• American Express and The PGA of America Partner to Offer Year-Round Golf Benefits for Cardmembers and Support for PGA Professionals
• Keybank Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Tuition Management Systems, Inc.
• Fidelity National Information Services Announces Results of Non-Strategic Business Review
• SecureWorks Reports Number of Hackers Attacking Banks Up 81% Since Last Year and Up 62% for Credit Unions
• eWeek: What's New in Authentication Technologies for Online Transactions?
• Baltimore Sun: Capital One to report cardholders' credit limits
• First Data Extends Agreement with BBVA Bancomer

The July issue of the First Annapolis Navigator is now available. This issue includes a special feature article with Roger Alexander, CEO of euroConex, as well as "Wal-Mart Financial Services: Revolution or Evolution?", "The Fundamentals of Expanding Your Prospect Universe", "Online Bill Payment Dynamics of Smaller Financial Institutions", and "Expansion of Credit Cards to New Socio-Economic Segments in Latin America."

Matt Hines writes for Infoworld about reactions from some enterprise IT leaders regarding Version 1.1 of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). "Bob Russo, general manager of the PCI Security Standards Council, said that the feedback the organization has received regarding the standard, including the newest additions, has been largely positive."

Ross Kerber writes for the Boston Globe about recent activity related to the TJX data breach case - including some guilty pleas in Florida by card counterfeiters using some of the stolen card information. But the actual perpetrators of the data breach itself have yet to be identified.

Fiserv and CheckFree have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Fiserv will acquire CheckFree in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $4.4 billion.

Brandon McGee of Huntington National Bank guest blogs at the Mobile Money & Banking blog about the deployments of mobile banking services at the top 10 US banks - of which 5 are already live with mobile banking services.

PayPal has announced that it is now "offering consumers more ways to pay online with PayPal Pay Later, a new convenient and secure service that allows merchants to offer promotional financing. Buyers that choose the promotional offer can defer payments for purchases on participating merchant web sites, allowing them to shop now and pay later."

• PCI Security Standards Council Announces Participation Milestone
• American Express(R) Cardmembers Can Earn Up To 1,500 Additional Membership Rewards(R) Points When Shopping At BonusPointsMall.com
• Pay By Touch's New Rapid Enroll Product is an Immediate Hit with Four New Customers
• PULSE Expands Relationship With Bank of America
• AP: Care needed when using debit cards
• Heartland Payment Systems Announces 40% Increase in Second Quarter Net Income
• Payment Data Systems Inc. and Natalie Gulbis Announce the Launch of the Natalie Gulbis Gift MasterCard
• Barclaycard Business Renews Contract with TNS
• Tranax and Columbus Data Services Announce a New Gift Card Solution for Self-service Terminals

A new study titled "Who Pays? The Winners and Losers of Credit Card Deregulation" published by the non-partisan research center Demos examines who bears the cost of credit card deregulation. According to Demos, the study "reveals how low-income families, African Americans, Latinos and single females bear a disproportionate amount of the cost to subsidize "competitive" credit card offers by paying excessive fees and high interest rates."

Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz write for USA Today about magnetic stripe skimming and counterfeiting of credit cards using the plastic from open loop gift cards.

TowerGroup has announced a new research report titled "Mobile Peer-to-Peer Payments: Verizon Wireless and Obopay Take a Short Step Down a Long Road" that finds that "while online peer-to-peer payments and their mobile counterparts are not new to the payments arena, the use of mobile devices to exchange payments between consumers is still in its infancy. The newly announced deal between Verizon Wireless and Obopay is novel, given the fact that a major U.S. mobile operator has chosen to partner with a startup technology vendor to support peer-to-peer payments by means of a downloadable application on mobile phones."

Javelin Strategy and Research has announced its "2007 Card Issuers’ Identity Safety Scorecard" - including describing "the security features of a dream credit card that put consumers in the driver’s seat when it comes to protecting them from identity fraud and knowing exactly what’s happening with their accounts. Javelin also announced the top credit card issuers that provide the best features that prevent, detect and resolve identity fraud."

MasterCard has announced financial results for second quarter of 2007 reporting net revenues of $997 million, up 17.8% over the same quarter last year of which about 2% of the growth was due to currency fluctuation. MasterCard's gross dollar volume grew 13.3% to $555 billion while transactions processed grew 15.2% to 4.6 billion. Worldwide purchase volume rose 14.8%, on a local currency basis, during the quarter to $414 billion. MasterCard's presentation on its 2Q07 results is available online.

In a post titled "Who will pay? And how?", Dave Birch blogs about the emerging payment alternatives for eCommerce payments (PayPal, Bill Me Later, and Google Checkout) and suggests that merchants who have become increasingly frustrated about the costs of traditional payment card acceptance now have new choices available.

Michael Arrington reports for TechCrunch that Amazon.com is expected to soon launch "a new web service around payments" that he expects will compete with both Google Checkout and PayPal for ecommerce payments.

Last week, Visa Inc. updated its SEC filings to include several exhibits to its original filing - including Visa USA's Master Agreement with JP Morgan Chase, its Amended and Restated Agreement with Bank of America, and various loss sharing agreements between Visa USA and certain of its member banks relating to pending litigation.

ID Analytics has announced the "results of new analytical research on U.S. identity fraud by geography. The research, which is based on actual and attempted frauds rather than on consumer victim reports, examined data from January through December 2006 to determine where identity fraud is most rapidly increasing."

Ian Kehoe writes for the Irish Business Times that Dublin-based PayPal International "has moved a significant portion of its business to Singapore for accounting and taxation purposes."

Ellen Roseman writes for the Toronto Star about printed credit card receipts in Canada - apparently many still contain the cardholder's full 16-digit account number and expiration data.

• FEED Becomes Mocapay, Heightens Commitment to Standardizing Mobile Payments
• Citi and Obopay Deliver First Mobile Payment Service to Chicagoland Consumers
• Adams County National Bank Joins PULSE with Exclusive PIN Debit Agreement, Plans Discover® Debit Issuance
• Online-Payment Service BidPay Launches API
• My Cause: SunTrust Promotion Offers Clients Unique Choice for Cash Incentives
• First Data International Completes Acquisition of POLCARD
• preCharge Issues 1st Annual Chargeback Report
• Forrester: Health Savings Accounts: The Battleground For Customer Loyalty
• Slate and OPEN from American Express® to Launch New Interactive Features for Small Business
• Bank Technology News: Small Business Payments: Big Hitters Make a PASS
• What is Visa’s role in credit card processing?
• CPA Technology Advisor: What’s eFFICIENT, eFFECTIVE & eCONOMICAL? It’s eBANKING!
• Kuala Lumpur: MasterCard offers antifraud classes

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Scott Lewer has been named General Manager and Executive Vice President of ReD USA, a division of Retail Decisions. Previously, Lewer was Vice President of Business Development at First Data International (FDI).

Christopher Peterson of the University of Florida - Levin College of Law has written a paper titled "Usury Law, Payday Loans, and Statutory Slight of Hand: An Empirical Analysis of American Credit Pricing Limits" (PDF).

Visa International's Latin American and Caribbean Region has announced that POS volume increased 26 percent to US$116.3 billion during the four quarters ending on March 31, 2007.

A recent survey commissioned by Cardways.com revealed that "81 percent of men and women prefer to receive gift cards for their birthday. Electronics ranked second followed by clothes and tickets to a show or sporting event."

Parago, a provider of rebate, incentive and promotion solutions, has announced "FSV Payment Systems has been selected as a strategic partner for prepaid services. In the newly formed partnership, FSV Payment Systems will manage prepaid card processing while their partner, Meta Payment Systems will provide issuing bank services."