One of our favorite industry publications is Jim Bruene's Online Banking Report. For over 10 years, Jim's done a great job with OBR - and on his NetBanker blog.

Last fall, Jim held his first conference - Finovate 2007 in New York City - and it sold out quickly. Videos from Finovate 2007 are available online.

Jim's just announced the first of two events he's got planned for 2008 - FinovateStartup scheduled for April 29th in San Francisco. This one-day conference will showcase the hottest financial technology startups – including Andera, Boulevard R., Buxfer, CAPS, Clairmail, Credit Karma, First ROI, Jwaala, Lending Club, Mint, Prosper, SmartHippo, Unified Money, and Wesabe.

Early-bird registration is open now - the first 25 Payments News readers can use coupon code "paymentsnews7" to get an additional $100 discount off of the registration fee. Online Banking Report subscribers can get a $250 discount off of the registration fee. We'll be attending FinovateStartup ourselves and look forward to seeing you there.

Businesspundit.com points to an article by Charles Owen Kile Jr. in the Journal of Accountacy titled "Accounting for Gift Cards". "In practice, the reporting of gift card sales and breakage among retailers varies significantly and it is unclear what future action, if any, standard-setters and regulators will take toward unifying the range of practices."

Another mobile payments startup has launched: Mpayy. Brian Dillard posts an interview on the Pathfinder blog with Trace Johnson, Mpayy's product VP.

The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) has been examining the regulatory implications of new technologies in banking. According to the group, "basic, everyday financial services are out of reach for more than two billion people in developing countries. But the rapid growth of branchless banking - including mobile phone banking - is reducing the cost and expanding the availability of such services."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide reported Q4 2007 financial results this morning. MasterCard’s gross dollar volume increased 15.2%, on a local currency basis, to $634 billion on a 17.2% increase in the number of transactions processed to 5.2 billion. Worldwide purchase volume rose 16.1%, on a local currency basis, during the quarter to $477 billion, driven by increased cardholder spending on a growing number of MasterCard cards. As of December 31, 2007, the company’s financial institution customers had issued 916 million MasterCard cards, an increase of 12.6% over the cards issued at December 31, 2006. An accompanying presentation is also available.

Social personal finance website Wesabe has announced the launch of an automated "add your bank" feature, allowing Wesabe's members to immediately add their financial institutions and upload data. During the sign-up process, if a new member's bank or credit union isn't one of the nearly 5,000 currently supported by Wesabe, they can add it to the database in less than a minute and begin uploading data. Wesabe's Marc Hedlund blogs about the new feature.   » Continue Reading

• Consumer Reports: Health gift-card fees can make you sick
• NOVA Purchases Southern DataComm
• TransUnion Survey Details Canadian Credit Use Over Holidays, Debt Management's Rank as New Year's Resolution
• Phoenix: Valley restaurant helping fight credit card fraud (wireless POS)
• Fuel Cards Under Threat from Visa and Mastercard
• American Express to Launch Innovative Online Fashion Network Bringing Unprecedented Access to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York Both on the Runway and Throughout the Tents

Payments News has covered TrialPay several times. Recently, Glenbrook's Russ Jones and Scott Loftesness completed a fourteen-page Research Brief entitled "Converting Customers With TrialPay - A New Payment Alternative for Online Merchants." To request a complimentary PDF copy of this Glenbrook Research Brief, click here.

Yankee Group has announced that "mobile banking must become available to a majority of mobile users including prepaid and low-income consumers if it is to succeed in North America. M-banking solution providers in North America can learn an important lesson on service adoption from international low-income initiatives as the global rise of the Anywhere Consumer™ takes hold."   » Continue Reading

A new report by Juniper Research finds that the rush by banks and mobile operators to deliver financial services to the mobile phone will result in just over 612 million mobile phone users generating over $587 billion worth of financial transactions by 2011. The report categorises Mobile Financial Services (MFS) into two distinct areas; Mobile Banking and Mobile Payments with Mobile Payments predicted to generate almost $22bn of transactions by 2011 and be adopted by 204m mobile phone users.   » Continue Reading

Wachovia Bank and Visa Inc. have announced that "they have signed a partnership agreement, renewing their long-standing relationship. Under terms of the deal, Wachovia will continue to offer Visa-branded credit and debit products to its customers as a major component of its consumer and small business payments business."   » Continue Reading

India's mChek, a provider of mobile security and payments services, has announced the introduction of the "patent-pending mChek Banner, a unique solution that enhances banner advertisements on the Internet into payment-enabled links. The mChek Banner is currently available to all users with pre-paid or post-paid Airtel mobile connections."   » Continue Reading

Aite Group has published a new report, "Contactless Payments and NFC in the United States: Beyond Science Fiction" in which it estimates that, In the absence of increased incentives by card networks, merchant penetration of contactless payment will only increase from 0.5% today to 2.5% by 2014.   » Continue Reading

• Alliance Data Systems Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
• Australia: Mobile banking steps up a gear
• China UnionPay Reports Strong Growth in Cell Phone-Based Payments
• New Mercator Report: Remote Deposit Capture for the Consumer
• WSJ: Alliance Data Sues Blackstone
• The Deal Professor: A.D.S.: The Way Out
• G&D Delivers Next Generation CharlieCard to MBTA
• CyberSource Corporation Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
• Toronto: Police crack gift card fraud ring

Many thanks to all of our PaymentsJobs.com employers. You’ll see your job postings here on Payments News and PaymentsJobs.com when you post your job openings to the PaymentsJobs.com job board. Listings are available for $200 for a 30 day posting.

If you're looking for a new gig, be sure to check out recent postings from RewardsNOW, Xtrategies, Accenture, Netgiro, Skylight Financial, Visa, Glenbrook, Danal, and Gilbarco Veeder-Root.

BART has announced that "a select group of BART riders is helping to launch a first-in-the-nation technological trial that will allow participants to walk up to any BART fare gate with a specially-equipped Sprint wireless phone and pay for their ride by tagging the phone on a reader located on top of the gate."   » Continue Reading

TowerGroup has announced new research that "finds that the most critical driver for the successful evolution of mobile banking and payments will be the ability of financial institutions and mobile operators to balance ease of use with security.   » Continue Reading

Dove Consulting has announced new research findings, sponsored by PSCU Financial Services, based upon consumer focus groups that "gauged consumer interest in and predicted future use of three major mobile applications: mobile banking (using a mobile device to access banking information), mobile payment at the point-of-sale (using a mobile device to make purchases), and mobile person-to-person payments (using a mobile device to send money to another mobile device)."

The winner? Mobile banking - chosen by two-thirds of participants. Mobile payments at POS was the choice of 30 percent while only a handful said they were excited about mobile person-to-person payments.   » Continue Reading

As part of its announcement this morning regarding fees, eBay also announced several enhancements that "will dramatically improve seller protection for eBay PowerSellers" when PayPal is used.   » Continue Reading

Discover reports that "few small business owners started out the year with confidence in the direction of the U.S. economy, according to the Discover Small Business Watch. The monthly index fell nearly 6½ points in January to 86.3, the second-largest point tumble in the 18-month existence of the poll. The index has been steadily decreasing since July, when it was 107.3."

Separately, Discover CEO David Nelms is presenting today at the Citi Financial Services Conference in New York.   » Continue Reading

• Shanghai Daily: It's on the cards: China UnionPay to continue overseas expansion
• Survey Shows Highly Favorable Consumer Perceptions for Fingerprint Sensors
• Paypal launches new bank withdrawal features for Filipinos
• American Express Company Q4 2007 (Qtr End 12/31/2007) Earnings Call Transcript
• Keynote Releases Study on Quality of 25+ Retail Web Sites Over the Course of the 2007 Holiday Season
• Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank (UK) Says Internet Bill Payments Almost Double

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson recently spoke with Elliott McEntee, President and CEO of NACHA about two current payment industry issues - NACHA's reaction to "de-coupled debits" and the progress of the Secure Vault Payments program. She's filed this report on the discussion.

CashEdge has announced that it executed more than $38 billion in account-to-account transfers in 2007 - "a 300% percent increase over 2006 volume. The transfers were initiated by consumers through CashEdge's money movement solutions that are currently in use at nearly one-third of the top 75 banks in the United States."   » Continue Reading

Javien Digital Payment Solutions has intorduced the Javien New Media Payment Gateway, calling it "the first transaction payment gateway tailored specifically to the needs of companies that sell digital assets like music, movies, games and software, whether sold via the Internet, or to mobile phones."   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'ANZ starts rush to mobile banking', Mahesh Sharma writes for Australian IT 'ANZ is set to become the first bank in Australia to launch a mobile phone banking service and its competitors are expected to follow suit soon.' ANZ's offering will include both SMS-based information services as well as a Java-based mobile handset application.

ICONIX has announced that its Iconix Truemark service is officially available to millions of PayPal account holders. According to the company, "by placing an icon next to legitimate email messages, the Iconix Truemark service helps consumers visually identify legitimate email messages and avoid dangerous scams known as phishing attacks."   » Continue Reading

U.S. Bank, MasterCard Worldwide and Nokia have announced a mobile payments pilot program in Spokane, Washington using new Nokia mobile phones equipped with MasterCard PayPass payment functionality allowing consumers "to pay for purchases with a tap of their mobile phone, instead of sliding a card through a magnetic stripe reader, handing it over to the cashier, or fumbling for cash and coins."   » Continue Reading

Business Week's Catherine Holahan takes a look at PayPal - and other alternative payment providers including Bill Me Later and Google Checkout. "Experts point to three main drivers for alternative payments: concern over fraud risk, growth in merchant participation, and fear of, or lack of access to, credit cards."

According to APACS, "from today (28 January) the new SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Scheme will enable euro credit transfers to be made within a maximum of three days, and without any deductions from the principal amount. The customers who will benefit most are those larger businesses for whom it will make cross-border trade easier, and UK consumers who make regular euro payments because they may, for example, maintain properties abroad."   » Continue Reading

PayPal has announced an agreement to acquire Fraud Sciences Ltd., a privately-held Israeli company with expertise in online risk tools, in a cash transaction with an aggregate transaction value of approximately $169 million. According to PayPal, "Fraud Sciences’ risk tools and analytics are expected to enhance eBay and PayPal’s proprietary fraud management systems and accelerate the development of next generation fraud detection tools."   » Continue Reading

• American Express Full-Year EPS from Continuing Operations Rises 16%
• Mercator Advisory Group Announces Three New Services: Prepaid, Retail Banking, and Corporate Banking
• New AccuPOS Retail Point of Sale Helps Small and Mid-Market Retailers Ring Up Success
• Discover Card's Third Annual Valentine's Day Shopping Survey Reveals the Way to Someone's Heart is Through Their Stomach
• Alliance Data Receives Notice From The Blackstone Group Regarding Merger Agreement Condition

Barlow Research has announced that Bank of America, SunTrust and Wells Fargo are winners of Barlow's Monarch Innovation Awards for their innovative products, features and service enhancements. Bank of America won the Overall Most Innovative award for its Easy Online Payroll and the Most Innovative Customer Service Enhancement award for its Online Text Chat Service. SunTrust won the Innovative Feature Award for its Fraud Inspector solution. Wells Fargo won the Most Innovative Product award for its Wells Fargo Merchant Checking account.   » Continue Reading

• Business Week: The Scramble for Gift-Card Cash
• WaMu Launches Simpler, Faster, More Personalized WaMu.com
• eBay's PayPal To Use Iconix to Beat Phishing
• UK: Payzone enters partnership with Safeway's Blackhawk network
• AuctionBytes: Startup Noca Offers MicroPayment Service
• F5 Networks Names PayPal President Scott Thomson to Its Board

In today's Wall St. Journal, former president Bill Clinton and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have an op-ed piece titled "Beyond Payday Loans" - where they write about efforts they're backing to help reduce the $8 billion spent on check cashing services, payday loans, etc. They write: "Here is one initiative that can unite progressives and conservatives as well as business leaders and community activists: helping the "unbanked" enter the financial mainstream by opening checking and savings accounts, and working collaboratively with financial institutions and community groups to develop and market products that work for this untapped market."

TechCrunch's Mark Hendrickson writes about Noca, a Redwood City, CA-based startup that "is attempting to virtually eliminate transaction fees by bypassing the credit card companies altogether with its own online payment service." Noca's mission statement says it is "building a new online payment system to provide significantly reduced transaction processing rates for online shopping enabling efficient processing of micro-transactions for digital goods."

IBC Bank, a member of International Bancshares Corporation, and Visa Inc. have announced signing a five-year partnership agreement that will result in IBC converting its entire debit portfolio of 450,000 debit cards in the United States to Visa-branded products as well as using the Visa Debit Processing Service (DPS) for debit card processing.   » Continue Reading

Visa Inc. has announced that "as of the end of 2007, more than three-fourths of the largest U.S. merchants (those processing six million or more Visa transactions annually) and nearly two-thirds of medium-sized merchants (those processing between one million and six million Visa transactions annually) have now validated their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Merchants in these two categories account for approximately two-thirds of Visa's U.S. transaction volume."   » Continue Reading

• New York Times: A Crackdown on Cabbies Who Refuse Credit Cards
• New NCR SelfServ(TM) Family of ATMs Introduces Innovative Solutions to Today's Most Critical Banking Issues
• GSI Commerce to Acquire e-Dialog
• Malaysia: OCBC introduces country's first all-network mobile phone banking
• Los Angeles Times: Virtual bank's Second Life scheme raises real concerns
• Brazil: BuscaPe Acquires 85% of Payment Methods Company Pagamento Digital
• Software Earnings Joins ECCHO as Sponsoring Organization

Glenbrook has a number of Payments Boot Camps, special focus workshops and roundtables currently open for registration. They include:

• Our two-day Payments Boot Camp "Spring Tour" begins with classes being held starting next month in the San Francisco Bay Area (February 19-20), followed by Atlanta (March 18-19) and New York (April 16-17).
• A new, first-time special focus one-day workshop on Card Payment Processing - The Value Chain being held in the San Francisco Bay Area on February 21.
• A new, first-time special focus two-day workshop on eB2B Payments at the Tipping Point being held in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 4-5. This workshop is being taught in partnership with Eric McCune of Forte Financial and is approved for up to 17 CTP/CCM recertification credit(s) by the Association for Financial Professionals.
• A new half-day Roundtable on Emerging Payments where for the initial session we'll be focusing on mobile payments and Amazon's Flexible Payment Service. This roundtable is being held in the San Francisco Bay Area on February 22 (morning).

There is much more information about all of these courses available on the Glenbrook website - including who the instructors are for each course, course fees, agendas, online registration, etc. Questions or need more information? Contact Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson.

eBay reported fourth quarter 2007 financial results earlier today - saying that "PayPal posted another stellar quarter with $563 million in revenue, an increase of 35% year-over-year. Net total payment volume (TPV) for the quarter was $14.04 billion, an increase of 35% year-over-year. The revenue and net TPV growth represents increased penetration on eBay as well as expanded adoption of PayPal Merchant Services across the Web. PayPal will continue to focus on greater penetration into the Marketplaces business as well as the acquisition of new merchants."

In other eBay news, eBay CEO Meg Whitman announced she would be stepping down in March. John Donahue, currently president of eBay's auction business, has been named her successor. Rajiv Dutta, currently President of PayPal moves to President of eBay. Scott Thompson, currently PayPal's CTO, will be the new President of PayPal.   » Continue Reading

Single Touch Interactive and InComm have announced that they have partnered to provide customers with mobile coupons through retail loyalty cards. According to the two companies, "combining InComm’s point of sale integration at over 100,000 top national retail stores with Single Touch Interactive’s ADC mobile technology creates an easy to use mobile coupon platform that doesn’t change customer or retailer behavior."   » Continue Reading

Mitek Systems has announced ImageNet Mobile Deposit, calling it "the first mobile banking software that allow banks to accept paper check deposits and bill payments via camera-equipped mobile phones." Mitek will demonstrate ImageNet Mobile Deposit in booth #225 at the BAI-TransPay show beginning February 5, 2008 in Dallas at the Gaylord Grapevine Resort.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced its 2007 holiday results - reporting an upsurge in toys, travel and fashion purchases in Q4 2007 as compared to Q4 2006. Toy purchases grew 131 percent, travel buying increased 67 percent, female fashion, including shoes and handbags, increased 128 percent. The company also reported that consumers who used Bill Me Later more than doubled their use of deferred billing in Q4 2007 as compared to Q4 2006.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced that it has signed a contract with cadooz AG, a leading provider of corporate gift and incentive vouchers in Germany, to deliver card-based incentive and reward solutions.   » Continue Reading

Monitise has announced the launch of MoniTrust, a platform for Near Field Communication (NFC) payments and ticketing.   » Continue Reading

American Express and Heartland Payment Systems have announced that they will offer a streamlined process that enables merchants to accept American Express Cards on Heartland’s merchant processing platform.   » Continue Reading

• Fair Isaac and IBM Expand Global Alliance to Deliver Decision Management Applications
• NetSpend(R) and ACE Cash Express Customers Keep Thinking Pink With the All-Access(R) Visa(R) Prepaid Card Program
• Ontario Becomes First Canadian Jurisdiction With Credit Alert Legislation
• TrialPay Selected by AlwaysOn as OnMedia Top 100 Winner
• Open Solutions Sustains its International Presence through Strategic Reseller Partnership with Hildebrando
• Bremer Bank to Begin Image Exchange With Viewpointe's Pointe2Pointe Solution
• Examine the Teens, Money, Payment Cards and Financial Services in the U.S.
• Allied Irish Bank And First Data Announce Launch Of AIB Merchant Services
• West Coast Bank Offers Next Day Funding to Merchant Services Customers
• TROY Group, Inc. Announces Sale of ACH Software Product Line

MasterCard has announced the election of Jose Octavio Reyes Lagunes and Silvio Barzi to its Board of Directors. Jose Octavio Reyes Lagunes, 55, is President, Latin America Group at The Coca-Cola Company. Silvio Barzi, 60, is the Executive Vice President of UniCredit Group, Head of New Markets, and founder and Chairman of UniCredit Consumer Finance, a bank specializing in credit cards and consumer credit.

Thomson Financial reports on comments by president and chief executive of Visa Europe Peter Ayliffe regarding the need to advance discussions with the European Commission on interchange fees. Ayliffe also spoke out strongly against surcharging.

Fair Isaac has announced "a new forward-looking decision tool kit for lenders. The Fair Isaac Risk Management Suite, available in 2Q08, provides deeper insight into the future debt sensitivity and default risk of individuals, as well as more precise understanding of default risk across entire loan portfolios."   » Continue Reading

Sybase 365 has announced a partnership with C-SAM to extend its mobile banking platform - Sybase mBanking 365 - to include a downloadable Java and NFC compatible client.   » Continue Reading

• Ingenico sues private equity group Francisco Partners over Hypercom/Thales deal
• PayPal's Valentine's Day Survey Proves Money Still Can't Buy Love
• Could PayPal make eBay buyout bait?

• ICICI Bank launches iMobile
• TSYS, Synovus facing stock market headwinds following historic split

PayPal has introduced the PayPal Kit for Non-Profits. More details in this PayPal Blog post by Glenn Lim. Lim writes "The kit contains an easy to install PayPal Donate Button and step-by-step instructions that are so simple, nearly anyone can enable their websites to accept donations in under one hour. To support this effort, PayPal is making a $50 donation to the first 1,000 501(C)(3) non-profit organizations that use the kit."

The Associated Press reports that "Personal information on about 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and up to 100 other retailers could be compromised after a computer tape went missing. GE Money, which handles credit card operations for Penney and many other retailers, said Thursday night that the missing information includes Social Security numbers for about 150,000 people."

• Bank of America Names First Technology Fellows
• Dunbar leaves MasterCard for CEO post at Network Solutions
• San Jose Mercury News: Retail Ink: Gift-card cash-back law lacks teeth

As Glenbrook's strategy consulting practice continues to grow, we are looking to add to our talent base on the east coast. We're current seeking a payments professional with 5+ years of relevant experience to join our consulting staff as a Senior Associate in the New York metropolitan area. Please see our posting on www.PaymentsJobs.com for the specifics. In particular, we would love to hear from qualified applicants who are already regular readers of Payments News.

NOVA Information Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, and American Express have announced "the signing of an agreement under which NOVA will sign up and service American Express merchants on behalf of American Express. Under the terms of the agreement, NOVA will add American Express® Card acceptance to the payment processing services offered to merchants. NOVA will provide processing, settlement, customer support and reporting to merchants for all major card brands."   » Continue Reading

Yahoo! has announced "its support for the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework for all 248 million active registered Yahoo! users worldwide. OpenID, an open framework based on proven Internet technologies, enables users to consolidate their Internet identity, eliminating the need to create separate IDs and logins at all of the various websites, blogs, and profile pages they may visit in the course of their online session. In addition to the many leading Yahoo! services users already enjoy, anyone with a Yahoo! ID will be able to use the same ID for easy access to any sites that support OpenID 2.0."   » Continue Reading

Obopay has announced that it is adding support for BlackBerry smartphones. According to the company, "the new Obopay application for BlackBerry users provides fast, customizable access to Obopay's full suite of mobile payment services."   » Continue Reading

JPMorgan has announced that it has enhanced its Web-based accounts receivable management application, Receivables Edge, to automatically match open invoice records to bank captured payments and remittance detail, including checks, ACH and wire transfers.   » Continue Reading

Goldleaf Financial Solutions has announced the acquisition of Atlanta-based Alogent, a provider of enterprise deposit automation technologies for global financial institutions. According to the company, the acquisition "strengthens Goldleaf’s leadership in converging payments, allowing the company to expand market presence, extends its customers base and creates significant cross-selling opportunities. Goldleaf now has 81,000 deposit automation touch points, in addition to more than 25,000 ACH endpoints, which showcases its deep penetration in the financial services market."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced that "W. Roy Dunbar, 46, President—Global Technology and Operations since 2004, will leave MasterCard Worldwide to become Chief Executive Officer of a company outside the payments industry. Details of his position will be announced shortly by his new company." Rob Reeg, 51, Chief Technology Officer for MasterCard Worldwide, will head the unit on an interim basis.

FSV Payment Systems and MiCash have announced "the general availability of a fully integrated card-to-cash international money transfer functionality on prepaid payroll debit cards offered by FSV. This unique functionality is available currently to MiCash prepaid debit cardholders."   » Continue Reading

• CPI Card Group Acquires Didier
• Lansing State Journal: When restaurant closed, readers left holding gift cards
• Springfield, MO News-Leader: Chase celebrates success

The March 4-5 Glenbrook Special Focus Workshop on B2B Payments being taught by Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson and Erin McCune of Forte Financial has been approved for up to 17 CTP/CCM recertification credits by the Association of Financial Professionals .

TowerGroup says that "the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has forced banks to enter 2008 in a reactive mode. New research from TowerGroup examining the top retail banking trends for 2008 finds that bankers are anxious on two fronts. First, they worry about unseen threats that may not yet have surfaced in their credit portfolios. Second, they fret over how their institutions can compete rationally during the volatile days ahead."   » Continue Reading

ClairMail has announced that Intercredit Bank, N.A., a Florida-based commercial and consumer financial institution, has selected ClairMail to power its new mobile banking offering.   » Continue Reading

JP Morgan Chase has reported financial results for the fourth quarter of 2007. In its Card Services business, net income declined 15% to $609 million primarily as a result of an increase in its provision for credit losses to $1.8 billion, up 40% over the same quarter in 2006. Noninterest expenses declined during the quarter. Its merchant processing (Chase Paymentech) reported processing card volume of $194.4 billion, up 9%, on 5.4 billion transactions.

• Javelin Strategy & Research: Credit Card Acquisition and Account Management: Deepening Online Relationships for Efficiency and Profitability
• Digital Identity Leaders Gather in Washington, DC to Advance Trusted Identity Assurance Levels
• Payoneer: Taking Prepaid Debit Cards to the Next Level

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• John B. Lewis has been named Director, Financial Services at New York, NY-based for Zeta Interactive. Most recently, Lewis was a First Vice President for J.P. Morgan Chase & Company where he was responsible for online marketing to credit card customers.

Chase Paymentech reports that sales volume and the number of transactions conducted at 10 of the largest U.S. retail Web sites rose 29 percent during the 2007 year-end holiday shopping period according to data tracked by its Chase Paymentech Pulse Index.   » Continue Reading

The Payment Card Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has posted the latest edition of its Update quarterly newsletter along with several new papers.

BasePoint Analytics has announced the launch of its Recovery Optimization Program for credit and debit card issuers that provides them with "proven methods and techniques to increase the amount they recover on fraudulent transactions." BasePoint says the program can "increase issuer recovery rates to as much as 50% of the initial claims of fraud, whereas current industry average recovery rates are only up to 30%."   » Continue Reading

Dave Birch, in a post titled "Getting cash on the web", talks about getting cash on the web but he's really talking about innovation in payments and where it's happening (or not). He points out that PayPal, for example, can hardly be called an "alternative" payment system any more - given how significant it has become for ecommerce payments. At Glenbrook, we recently made the same determination - moving PayPal out of the "Emerging Payments" module in out Payments Boot Camp.

Metavante has announced it plans to acquire BenSoft Incorporated and its product, RepayMe. Metavante will integrate RepayMe into its existing Healthcare Payment Solutions suite of products. According to Metavante, "RepayMe software provides a Web-based tool for individuals who participate in various benefit programs to easily obtain reimbursement for eligible expenses that are covered by their benefit plans."   » Continue Reading

Citigroup has announced a net loss for the 2007 fourth quarter of $9.83 billion with the results including a "$18.1 billion in pre-tax write-downs and credit costs on sub-prime related direct exposures in fixed income markets, and a $4.1 billion increase in credit costs in U.S. consumer primarily related to higher current and estimated losses on consumer loans."

Citi said that its "U.S. consumer credit costs increased $4.1 billion, comprised of $689 million in higher net credit losses and a net charge of $3.31 billion to increase loan loss reserves. ... The increase in credit costs primarily reflected a weakening of leading credit indicators, including increased delinquencies on 1st and 2nd mortgages, unsecured personal loans, credit cards, and auto loans."

• Shift4 Announces Alliance with JDA(R) Software to Offer Premium Payment Processing Suite
• eBillme™ and 1-800-Flowers.com® Team Up to Offer Customers a Delicious Valentine’s Day Promotion
• Vesdia Launches Innovative Online Shopping Reward Solution
• NetBanker: Unconference BarCampBank Coming to San Francisco and New England
• WSJ: Online Tools Aid Money Juggling
• TransUnion Hires Fraud Industry Expert, Enhancing Fraud and Identity Management Role in Canadian Market
• U.K.: Citi Cards Launches Miles with More Value with New easyJet MasterCard

MasterCard Worldwide has announced it has "introduced a new tag treatment highlighting both credit and debit payment options in its award-winning Priceless television advertising. In the new treatment, the MasterCard logo will “flip” to showcase the two payment forms that consumers use the most – credit and debit."   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'High-End Cards Fall From Grace', the Wall St. Journal's Robin Sidel and David Enrich report on last week's news from American Express and Capital One about increasing delinquencies in their credit card portfolios. Later this week, other major issuers will report financial results - including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup. Another very large issuer, Bank of America, will be reporting financial results next week.

Over the weekend, the New York Times' Floyd Norris reported on last week's Federal Reserve report about the recent surge in growth in consumer revolving debt.

• PlasticVault Launches to Help Retailers Get Connected With Gift Card Holders, Increasing Redemption
• Hypercom Introduces SmartPayments™ EasyRetail Cardholder-Facing Payment Product for Smaller Merchants
• Hypercom Introduces SmartPayments™ EasyRetail Cardholder-Facing Payment Product for Smaller Merchants
• Chase Recognizes Teachers and Schools for Delivering Innovative Financial Education
• Fiserv Offers CheckFreePay Walk-In Bill Payment Service via Ready Credit Corporation ReadySTATION Kiosks
• Mobilians International Partners With PaymentOne to Provide Phone-Based Payment Solution
• VeriFone Announces PCI-PED Approved MX860, Offering Touch-Enabled Widescreen Multimedia Display and Tactile Keypad
• VeriFone Announces MX800 Series Price Checker
• Leader in Airport Retailing The Paradies Shops Picks ViVOtech Contactless Payment Technologies for All US and Canadian Locations
• ViVOtech Improves Consumer Payment Experience With Launch of ViVOpay 5000m Contactless, Mobile NFC & Mag-Stripe All-In-One System