Marianne Crowe, Vice President, Emerging Payments Research Group, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, gave a presentation last week titled "Emerging Payments - The Changing Landscape" to the Maine Association of Community Banks and to the New Hampshire Community Bankers Association. Crowe's presentation discusses the growth in debit card payments, the emergence (and potential threats to banks) of decoupled debit cards, prepaid cards for the unbanked, and the use of the Internet for bill payment, ecommerce purchases, and person-to-person or account-to-account money transfers. She also discusses contactless payments and mobile banking.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has announced the availability of a new publication, Consumer Payments Research Reference Guide - Supplement , providing an addendum to the original Consumer Payments Research Reference Guide. The Supplement includes new organizations that have conducted studies on consumer payments topics or support other research efforts to collect data on consumer payments. While the original Guide focused on private sector companies, the Supplement focuses primarily on organizations engaged in public policy research.   » Continue Reading

The second session of Glenbrook's new 2008 Roundtable on Emerging Payments is coming up on Wednesday morning, May 7, in Mountain View, CA. This session is titled "Cross-Border eCommerce: Pot of Gold and Rainbow of Fraud." Click to read the session abstract.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced it is 'offering consumers a $250 incentive for the purchase of new residential photovoltaic solar energy systems, hosting a sweepstake to encourage customers to bank online, and expanding its Wells Fargo Rewards program to include a line of eco-friendly options.'   » Continue Reading

The UK's Blueberry Card Services Ltd has introduced a 'new pay-as-you-go MasterCard card' that it says has been 'created specifically to help mothers manage their finances and save hundreds of pounds off their day-to-day expenses. The BaBee Prepaid MasterCard Card lets mums budget for their families, earn money with a referral scheme and save money with a broad range of discounts, all at a time when their income is reduced to maternity pay or less and household costs escalate.' The BaBee Blog provides insight into how the card is used by a mum in her daily life.   » Continue Reading

The Reserve Bank of Australia has released preliminary conclusions from its 2007/08 review of the payments system reforms undertaken by the Payments System Board. The Bank is now seeking submissions on these conclusions, before finalising the review later in the year.   » Continue Reading

Bank of America has reported financial results for the first quarter. Included in the earnings press release were a couple of interesting data points:

• Mobile Banking recorded approximately 224,000 activations reaching 840,000 active customers
• Keep the Change reached 8 million net new enrollments since inception, with 974,000 customers alone signing up in the first quarter (Keep the Change is Bank of America's savings program that combines debit cards and deposit products)

Update: On the earnings report conference call this morning, BofA CEO Kenneth D. Lewis said that “the current environment is the most challenging I have dealt with.”

A comment on the Rocky Mountain News website by Louise M. Furche suggests that First Data Corp. got what it deserved from how it handled its credit risk management of Frontier Airlines. She suggests that "a better route for First Data would have been to sit down face-to-face with Frontier since they are both based in the Denver area and a meeting could have taken place with less than a 30-minute drive to a neutral location."

• USA Today: Younger people get into mobile banking
• New York Times: Gift Cards Go Philanthropic
• Wal-Mart Consumer Behavior Shows Buying Green is Going Mainstream
• AirPlus International Announces New Corporate MasterCard Product in the United States
• Focus on Growth and Hiring Plans Remain as Optimism in the Economy Drops for Small Business Owners, According to the OPEN from American Express(R) Small Business Monitor
• AdmitOne Security Unveils AdmitOne Authentication Suite
• Bankrate.com: 80% of Americans Say They Are Concerned About Identity Theft
• Korea Times: KTF, Shinhan Join Forces for Mobile Payment System
• BB&T Begins Processing with Endpoint Exchange
• Qualys Publishes “Vulnerability Management for Dummies”
• PaySimple Offers Earth Day Discount to Help Environment
• Experian Fraud Prevention Expertise Beneficial in Red Flag Rules Program Development
• New Aite Group Report: Online and Mobile Banking Technology Supplier Update
• Bank of America Earns $1.21 Billion, or $0.23 per Share, in the First Quarter
• The Scotsman (UK): Banks tell clients to beware of anything phishy
• Telegraph (UK): Citigroup's CFO says consumer credit now biggest risk