Heartland Payment Systems has announced that forty-six state associations now support its "Merchant Bill of Rights, a major initiative to help owners of small and mid-sized businesses manage the cost and complexity of credit and debit card acceptance."

US Bank's Elan Financial Services has announced it has partnered with Sapphire Mobile Systems to conduct a mobile banking and payments pilot, integrating with the Phire Mobile Debit Network to provide customers with "highly secure, instant access to their PayCard accounts via any mobile handset."

• NicheRetail.com Launches New Payment Option, SECURE-eBill
• New Celent Report: Next-Generation ATM Software: From Multivendor to Multichannel
• Sharper Image Improves Online Shopping with Bill Me Later
• Global Payments Announces Payment Card and Check Processing Relationship with Illinois Automobile Dealers Association
• Frank W. Abagnale to Share Fraud Prevention Techniques On City National Bank's Free Interactive Webinar
• Fair Isaac Launches Sold-Out ``Smarter Decisions'' Conference in Lisbon
• WaMu Only Bank Among BusinessWeek’s Top 25 ‘Customer Service Champs’

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company issued a press release late today updating news of an earlier suspected security breach: "On Monday night, associates in our Coventry, Rhode Island, Stop & Shop noticed suspicious activity at the front of the store near our cash registers. Our associates called the Coventry Police, who responded immediately and arrested four individuals."

Jessica Anderson writes for Kiplinger.com about being a person-to-person lender on Prosper.com - saying it "offers financial rewards with a dose of good karma."

Bankrate.com reports on news out of the UK that Lloyds TSB plans to begin charging cardholders fees of £35 per year if they don't use their credit cards often enough. More details about the plan are available in this BBC story.

Aliaswire has announced the general availability of PayVox, a "Voice-Activated Bill Payment solution that has been designed exclusively for the prepaid card industry. Using just a prepaid debit card, PayVox allows users to pay bills over the phone or the web in a manner previously only available to on-line banking bill-pay customers."

Visa USA has announced that nearly twenty issuers, partners, processors and acquiring financial institutions have agreed to implement Visa ReadyLink, Visa’s prepaid load network service. Visa recently announced an agreement with Blackhawk Network’s alliance partner stores, making Safeway the first in Blackhawk Network’s alliance of 60,000 stores in North America to implement Visa ReadyLink.

The European Financial Management & Marketing Association has announced a conference titled "Trust in Online Finance - Creating Safe and Trusted Online Offerings" to be held in Brussels on Thursday-Friday, April 26-27.

comScore Networks has released the results of a study analyzing usage of online bill payment services at leading banks - "defined as paying a bill online from a checking, savings, or money market account using the functionality in the bill pay portion of the bank's Web site and where the recipient of the money is not the bank itself. According to the study, among those consumers who had one or more checking, savings, or money market accounts and who used online bank bill pay during the quarter with a leading financial institution Bank of America achieved 65 percent penetration in Q4 2006. Wells Fargo ranked second in penetration of online bill payers, with a level of 18 percent, followed by Chase and Wachovia (each achieved 13 percent penetration)."

Bank of America is webcasting the second day of its annual investor conference today. Yesterday's webcast is also available for viewing online.

A presentation by Barbara Desoer, Chief Technology & Operations Officer, titled "Payments: The Opportunity" is particularly of interest to payments professionals - she notes that "payments drive more revenue for banks than any other business." Additional presentations from the conference are available online.

Glenbrook's next Payments Boot Camp, scheduled for Atlanta, Georgia on March 13 and 14, has only a few open seats remaining. Carol Coye Benson and Scott Loftesness will be teaching this session. If you're interested in attending this boot camp in Atlanta, please be sure to register now as we're just about sold out.

Glenbrook's Merchants Payments Boot Camp, specifically tailored for retailers, ecommerce merchants, etc. is being held March 21 and 22 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Allen Weinberg, Russ Jones and Jay DeWitt will be teaching this session. Registration is available online.

For answers to any questions about Glenbrook's Payments Boot Camps, you can contact us at bootcamp@glenbrook.com.

Damon Williams has posted about his new book for PayPal developers titled "Pro PayPal E-Commerce." Williams says he's "pulled together just about all of the different options that PayPal offers to web developers, and included lots of sample code and best practices for developing your website or application."

You'll find more books specially selected for payments professionals at the Payments News Store.

Capital One has announced the No Hassle Cash Rewards credit card that "offers (one percent) cash back on purchases without the complicated requirements, confusing language and frustrating expiration periods of other cash back rewards programs."

NetBanker's Jim Bruene has announced the publication of new research titled "Mobile Banking & Payments 2.0" - saying that "after three months of looking at mobile banking, talking to more players, and trying to develop a reasonable forecast, we have tempered our initial enthusiasm a bit. While we remain optimistic that the mobile channel will someday eclipse desktop online banking ... in North America mobile banking is NOT a new channel, but rather an extension of existing sales and service channels." The report is available for $495 or included with a subscription to Online Banking Report.

• Wells Fargo Receives Top Marks for Small Business Online Site
• Bank of America, MedImpact Launch Unique Credit Card and Consumer Directed Health-Care Offering
• Panini Announces Agreement with MHL Computer Products, Inc.
• BBC: Burgers paid for by mobile phone
• 3PEA International, Inc. Announces Entry Into Prepaid Debit Card Market
• InComm Hosts Gift Card & Retail Fraud Summits

The Federal Reserve System’s Payments System Policy Advisory Committee has published a summary of results from a forum on "Transforming U.S. Retail Payments" that was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on November 2, 2006 to discuss payments system developments and barriers to innovation with the payments industry and relevant payments system participants. "During the forum, industry experts representing depository institutions, payment processors, and nonfinancial corporations provided a variety of perspectives on strategic issues and opportunities associated with the changing U.S. retail payments system."

The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) has announced its annual conference and general meeting will be held in Dallas on May 16-17. On May 15, the FSTC will he holding a Mobile Payments Workshop - also in Dallas.

Over on The Bankwatch blog, Colin Henderson takes a look at Huntington Bank's new DirectHuntington high rate online savings account initiative. Huntington announced DirectHuntington earlier today - offering a 5.3% APY.

According to Comdata, "gift cards make holiday shopping quick, while gift card malls make it painless." A recent survey by the company shows consumers hit gift card malls in a big way this past holiday season. Results of a national web survey of adults conducted in February revealed that 22 percent of adults purchased cards at a gift card mall this year, up from 14 percent in 2006.

Retail Expansion Network has announced PaidByCash - described as "a new coast-to-coast cash network that allows any online retailer and any online shopper to complete a cash transaction over the Internet. PaidByCash is a Virtual MasterCard product accepted by nearly every online retailer. With a nationwide network of 60,000 neighborhood retail outlets where consumers can convert cash into an online payment instrument, PaidByCash has opened a new market for the national online retail economy."

The Center for Financial Services Innovation has published a white paper titled "Cardholder Use of General Spending Prepaid Cards: A Closer Look at the Market" (PDF) written by Sherrie L. W. Rhine, Katy Jacob, Yazmin Osaki, and Jennifer Tescher. From the executive summary: "To gain a clearer understanding of the transaction behavior of cardholders, CFSI explored trends in the general spending prepaid card market as understood from four card providers that participated in this study. With transaction data provided by the participants on a total of nearly
2,000 cardholders, this study seeks to define how consumers use branded general spending cards."

The Center for Financial Services Innovation has published a new white paper titled "Card-Based Remittances; A Closer Look at Supply and Demand" (PDF) written by Manuel Orozco, Katy Jacob and Jennifer Tescher. From the executive summary: "This report presents the results of an analysis of the supply and demand for card-based transfers among migrants. We analyze a nationwide study of Latin American and Caribbean migrant remittance senders and their access and use of card products of all kinds. Coupled with extensive interviews with card-based remittance providers, this analysis allows us to investigate the relationship between the supply for card-based remittances and remittance senders’ demands for financial products."

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Dave Johnson has been named CFO at mobile payments provider Obopay. Earlier, Johnson held roles as chief operating and/or financial officer at PayPal.

Reuters reports that NTT DoCoMo and McDonald's have announced they will be forming a new joint venture company to facilitate acceptance of mobile payments at McDonald's locations in Japan.

EMVCo, the EMV chip card standards body jointly owned by JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International, has announced its launch of a Card Type Approval process for Common Core Definitions (CCD) and Common Payment Application (CPA) compliant cards.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), American Bankers Association (ABA) and the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) have announced joint sponsorship of the inaugural Counter-eCrime Operations Summit (CeCOS), "a conference for counter-ecrime stakeholders focusing on the management of electronic crime events and the work of the professionals charged with engaging these increasingly threatening and costly incidents."

• Anti Consumer Bill in Texas Would Water Down Current State Law by Penalizing Consumers Who Pay with Plastic
• New Smart Card Alliance White Paper: Smart Cards in the U.S. Healthcare Market Benefits Patients, Providers and Payers
• Palm Desert National Bank Announces Stored Value Prepaid Card Programs
• PaySimple Provides Payment Processing Capability to Buz Software Data Management Systems
• BancTec Launches Revolutionary Medical Banking Revenue Management Solution
• Fifth Third Processing Solutions Selects Canopy Financial to Power Healthcare Banking Services
• Dynamic Card Solutions Signs 300th Customer
• Acacia Technologies Licenses Credit Card Fraud Protection Technology to Travelex America

Following earlier press reports that it was about to do so, Citi has officially announced that "Gary Crittenden, formerly Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and head of Global Network Services at American Express, will become its Chief Financial Officer. He will report directly to Charles Prince, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, effective March 12, 2007."

Zhang Fengming reports for ShanghaiDaily.com on the increasing volumes of bank card transactions in China as reported by China Unionpay, the country's sole bank card transaction system operator.