Calling it the "first ever prepaid foreign currency card", Travelex has announced it has teamed with MasterCard and West Suburban Bank to create the Cash Passport Card. The new Cash Passport cards are available in Euros and British Pounds with the exchange rate locked in at the time the card is loaded. Travelex says that for the consumer this means they avoid the risk of currency fluctuations.

Several SEC Form 10-K Annual Report filings have been completed by various payments-related firms over the last few days including: TSYS, American Express, Fiserv, MasterCard Worldwide, Discover Financial Services, and Visa Inc.

Bellco Credit Union has announced that it "is making it easier for members to take care of their banking needs and access Bellco services through their mobile phones with Bellco’s new Mobile Banking. Bellco members can use their Internet-enabled mobile phones or PDAs to visit http://www.bellco.org and check their account balances, view account history, transfer funds between accounts and manage online bill pay."

The Bank of England has published its fourth Payment Systems Oversight Report . "The Oversight Report is an important element of the Bank’s oversight work, increasing transparency about the performance of the systems and acting as a tool to encourage further progress. The report describes the challenges presented to the key UK payment systems over the past year and explains the focus of the Bank's work in this field."

• Tucson: The thieves who rode out of town with PINs
• West Texas Credit Union Installs VERO(TM) Automated Check Cashing Solution
• Court to Notify Those Who Made a Purchase or a Return at a TJX Store about a Class Action Settlement
• NRF: Self-Swipe Boosting Fraud Risk
• WSJ: Yet Another Reason To Pay Off Credit Cards
• Bank Systems & Technology: Can Remote Deposit Capture Drive Growth?
• Travelex, MasterCard and West Suburban Bank to offer new prepaid card
• SafeNet to Acquire Ingrian Networks, Inc.

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Todd Brockman has been named president of Galileo Processing. Brockman formerly ran the prepaid business for Visa.

Registration is about to close for a special two-day focus workshop titled "eB2B Payments at the Tipping Point" being held in the San Francisco Bay Area next week on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 4-5. This special workshop is being taught by Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson in partnership with Erin McCune of Forte Financial. The workshop is approved for up to 17 CTP/CCM recertification credits by the Association for Financial Professionals. Please register ASAP if you'd like to attend this new workshop.

Availity, an e-health information exchange, and TRANSFIRST have announced the general availability of the Availity CareCollect solution for all physicians and health care providers nationwide. According to the two companies, the CareCollect solution is being offered through a partnership with TRANSFIRST, and will provide Availity customers fully integrated payment processing capabilities.

Yodlee has announced that its proprietary DirectPay card payment network now supports over 300 national and regional billers, enabling new revenue generating credit and debit card based electronic bill payments. Yodless says that "the 300 DirectPay billers represent over 40 percent of major U.S. billers by volume and give most consumers the opportunity to pay nearly half of their bills by card each month."

Wondering whether the cell phone is about to replace the wallet? Will the disappearance of international border constraints from the payments landscape open as many doors to potential risk as it does to business growth opportunities?Financial institutions and businesses can choose from more than 130 sessions addressing these and other key industry issues at NACHA’s annual conference, PAYMENTS 08, May 18–21 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The Airline Payment Summit is being held in Toronto, Ontario on April 9-10, 2008. "As airline yields come under downward pressure, Airline Payment Summit (APS) will examine leading-edge low-cost payment solutions within the landscape of traditional forms of payments such as credit cards."

In an article titled 'Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business', Chris Anderson writes for Wired Magazine about how more and more things are trending toward free. Here's his view about why micropayments failed: 'The huge psychological gap between 'almost zero' and 'zero' is why micropayments failed. It's why Google doesn't show up on your credit card. It's why modern Web companies don't charge their users anything. And it's why Yahoo gives away disk drive space. The question of infinite storage was not if but when. The winners made their stuff free first.'

In an article titled 'Visa IPO success hinges on share price', Sam Zuckerman writes for the San Francisco Chronicle. He writes: 'Visa Inc.'s upcoming initial public offering is shaping up to be this year's hottest ticket on Wall Street. But should individual investors try to crash the party?'

• Equifax Data Reveals More Canadians Paying Bills on Time
• New Mercator Advisory Group Reports: P2P Lending: Why Not P2B2P?, Mobile Payment Case Studies: UMPay and China's Mobile Payment Market, A Seamless POS Future: Moving Order Entry and Payments into an iPod, Mobile Banking: Just Getting of the Ground.
• CardinalCommerce Now Offers UK-Based Payment Brand Ukash to Their eCommerce Merchants Through Cardinal Centinel
• The Berkman Center Announces Formation of Internet Safety Task Force to Identify and Develop Online Safety Tools
• Global Cash Access to Discontinue Arriva Credit Card
• Global Cash Access to Acquire Certegy Gaming Services for $25 Million

TowerGroup has announced new research titled "Process and Data Risks in a
Changing Economy: How Credit Card Issuers Can Protect Their Portfolios" that identifies critical steps credit card issuers can take to withstand the current credit storm, and recover more quickly when the economy normalizes.

Reuters reports that VisaNet Brasil, owned in part by Visa Inc, is expected to sell shares in an initial public offering later this year.

• New Aite Group Report - Mobile Banking for the Underbanked: Lessons from Africa
• eBillMe: Credit Crunch Drives Consumers and Online Retailers to Cash
• American Express Travelers Cheques and AAA Sign Exclusive Agreement
• New Scientist: Credit card readers 'vulnerable to attack'
• WaMu Celebrates Fifth Anniversary of Providing its Credit Card Customers with Free Access to Their FICO Credit Score
• American Express and Delta Introduce Pay with Miles Feature: Use Miles to Book Any Delta Seat, Any Time
• Australia: CBA picks Adobe Air for home loans
• Fortune: What PayPal does with your money
• Accertify and TARGUSinfo Partner to Help Merchants Verify Online Transaction Data
• iovation Adds Seasoned Risk Management Technology and Software Sales Veterans to Executive Team
• Growing Client Roster Demonstrates Digital Insight’s Strength in Commercial Banking
• Big Boy Restaurants International Names MICROS e7 Preferred Point-of-Sale Solution to Help Revitalize the Chain

Deborah Haynes reports for the London Times from Baghdad about prepaid MasterCards being distributed in Iraq by a Baghdad-based financial services company. "The firm has been providing pay-as-you-go MasterCards since 2004, although business started to pick up only over the past year as the country became more secure."

Saar Drimer, Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson, researchers at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge in the UK, have announced a demonstration showing that "Chip & PIN machines are not as secure as the banking industry claims. Two widely deployed models of PIN Entry Devices (PEDs), the Ingenico i3300 and Dione Xtreme, fail to protect customers' card details and PINs adequately." The BBC also reports on this story.

In an article titled 'Exposing the Credit-Card Fine Print', Anita Hamilton writes for Time about credit card issuer practices regarding interest rate adjustments. Hamllton writes that 'with politicians angry with the bankers over the subprime fiasco, the heat is rising on the industry's credit-card segment.'

On the Credit Slips blog, Adam Levitin examines the legislation recently introduced by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) called the The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights of 2008 (H.R. 5244). Levitin says the proposed legislation "is an important first step to reining in an industry that has run wild in a regulatory no-man’s land of outdated and threadbare federal laws, preempted state laws, and somnolent consumer protection by federal banking regulators. The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights is a major piece of federal consumer protection legislation that will help shield consumers from the worst abuses of the card industry."

Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal about Visa's planned initial public offering - scheduled for the week of March 17. Randall Smith writes for that Wall St. Journal about the fees ($350 million) that Wall St. firms may earn from the Visa IPO. Eric Dash writes about the Visa IPO for the New York Times.

• BBC: How secure is Chip and PIN?
• SmartMoney: Credit-Card Companies Put Tighter Squeeze on Cardholders
• Harris Launches New Card Access for Home Equity Lines of Credit
• TAPCO Credit Union Goes Mobile
• First Data Earns Multi-Year Debit Renewal with Wells Fargo
• WSJ: FDIC to Add Staff as Bank Failures Loom
• India: Mobile banking regulatory framework soon: RBI
• Tangerine Wellness Teams with ECount to Help Employees Cash in on their Weight Loss
• Globe and Mail: Canadian credit card market relatively unscathed

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Jeff McLaughlin has been named Executive Vice President of Mobile Strategy for Monitise Americas. Prior to joining Monitise Americas, McLaughlin held management positions at mFoundry, McCaw Cellular/AT&T Wireless, BCGI, GetConnected and Refresh Mobile.

Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent of the New York Times, posts about the Visa IPO - asking how much of the Visa IPO proceeds will stay in Visa to help the company grow?

Meta Payments Systems has announced "the iAdvance Line of Credit for the millions of Americans who are unable to access affordable, small dollar credit."

Bankrate.com has published findings from a national poll of 1,014 consumers that examined attitudes toward consumer debt. Among the findings, "66 percent of Americans say debt is often the result of unfortunate circumstances beyond a person's control, while 60 percent say it is usually the result of bad decisions."

Edgar, Dunn recently commissioned an independent online survey of 700 individuals in the United States who made Internet purchases during the 2007 end-of-year gift shopping season, and the results revealed a significant shift in consumer use of these types of "alternative forms of payment". A new Insight article by Pascal Burg explores some of the implications of this shift to key stakeholders including alternative payment providers, traditional payment providers, merchants, and consumers. Almost a third of survey respondents used PayPal, Bill Me Later or Google Checkout to make an online purchase during the 2007 end-of-year gift shopping season.

In an article titled 'Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web', John Markoff writes for the New York Times about the rich Internet application environment released today by Adobe: Adobe AIR. Adobe's list of showcase AIR applications doesn't yet include any from banks or other financial services companies.

Wells Fargo has announced that it has "extended its Foreign Exchange Online service to small businesses. This service allows businesses to send and receive foreign currency wires in more than 90 currencies using an internet connection."