The list of other payments and banking-related blogs we started last week has just about doubled in size over the last couple of days! We've now got over 25 blogs listed - along with widgets displaying the latest RSS feeds from each blog. You can quickly scan the page for stories that might be of interest and then click through to read the full text of each story. Clicking on the blog's name takes you to that blog's home page. Hope you find this useful and that it's helpful introducing you to some new sources of payments insights!

James Gardner blogs on Bankervision about what he heard at a conference yesterday - 'the mobile phone will become a personal server in the immediate future.'

Anita Boomstein, an attorney with Hughes Hubbard & Reed, has published a paper titled 'Identity Theft Prevention Programs: Will Your Company Need to Have One?' . Her paper reminds companies of their obligations under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) to take steps to 'prevent, detect and mitigate the occurences of identity theft.' Compliance becomes mandatory on November 1, 2008.

Unified Network Payment Solutions® (UNPS), a subsidiary of First Data Corp., has announced that it has been certified by MasterCard and Visa to provide chip technology solutions to Canadian merchants. With this certification, UNPS merchants will be able to accept chip cards at the point of sale.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Tracking Your Money Without Paying a Mint', Katherine Boehret writes for the Wall Street Journal about Mint.com, one of the companies presenting at yesterday's Finovate Startup conference in San Francisco. She says 'Mint was created for 20-somethings like me who want to pay more attention to their finances but aren't interested in taking hours each week to do so. This Web site worked ideally for me, and its clean interface integrates Web 2.0 features in a way that makes it a pleasure to use.'

Aite Group has published a new report titled 'Fraud Management Strategies of U.S. Financial Institutions: The Drive Toward Enterprise-Wide'. A new report from Aite Group, LLC examines the fraud management strategy of U.S. financial institutions today, and how it is expected to evolve over the next three years. Based on Aite Group's survey of 13 U.S. banks and credit unions conducted between January and March 2008, the report provides a measurement of fraud components and evaluates fraud management system requirements.   » Continue Reading

Lisa Lerer writes for Politico.com writes about merchant frustrations with increasing payment card interchange fees - and legislation introduced in the US Congress to try to deal with interchange fees. She writes: 'The fight is over interchange fees, a relatively obscure business-to-business charge brought into the spotlight by a two-year lobbying campaign. And it’s an issue the retailers hope will dovetail with renewed congressional scrutiny of other credit card practices involving hidden charges and excessive fees.'

On the flip side, Jeff Jacoby writes an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe titled 'Leave the Plastic Alone' advocating that no legislation is required to manage interchange fees.

• SecureNet Selects Hypercom's HBNet to Speed Payment Transactions at Pittsburgh International Airport
• AuctionBytes: eBay Changes PayPal Echeck Blocking Policy
• Squirrel One POS System Integrates Merchant Link’s TransactionVault
• Survey Indicates Nearly 59% of Consumers Will Not Change Online Shopping Habits In 2008 According to Safe Home Products
• Bank of America Selects SAP
• Experian Study Shows Severely Delinquent Mortgage Accounts Up 15 Percent in One Year
• Euronet’s Transact Subsidiary Signs Prepaid Agreement With Aral AG, Germany’s Largest Operator of Petrol Stations
• Bloomberg: American Express Investors Lower Hurdle for Sale
• New York Times: Citigroup to Sell $3 Billion in Stock
• WaMu replaces its chief risk officer

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Gregory Holmes has been named President, US at Obopay. Holmes previously worked for First Data Corp. and Visa USA.

eBillme has announced it will host a webinar on Wednesday, May 14, where Russ Jones of Glenbrook Partners will provide an in-depth look at the retailer integration process for several alternative payment options including: Bill Me Later, eBillme, Google Checkout, and PayPal.   » Continue Reading

Phoenix Payments has announced the results of its 2007 Consumer Payments Preferences and Usage Study: Debit Card Opportunities and Challenges. The study findings include a detailed report on debit card issues, covering consumer preferences, attitudes, and usage of debit cards as well as debit’s relationship to other payment methods.   » Continue Reading

A new study of debit cards in the US market commissioned by PULSE identified superior performance by “best-in-class” issuers - 'suggesting significant untapped potential in debit for many financial institutions.'   » Continue Reading

Erin McCune blogs the best of show awards for today's Finovate Startup conference. My notes from the company presentations are available here. It was a great event, extremely fast paced and a lot of fun. Be sure to read Erin's coverage as well.

There's a BayPay meeting for San Francisco Bay Area payments professionals being held tomorrow night, Wednesday, April 30, from 6-9 PM. The topic is "From Mobile Banking to Mobile Payments". If you're already a BayPay member, you should have already received the details on meeting location, etc. If you're not a BayPay member and would like to join, contact me directly and I'll fill you in on the details.

We're live at the wonderful UCSF Conference Center in the Mission Bay of San Francisco - about a minute until the first demo session begins at FinovateStartup. We'll be updating this post with our notes from the demos through the day.   » Continue Reading

CyberSource and China-based PayEase Technology Ltd. have announced a collaboration to facilitate merchants’ entry into the China market. With the PayEase/CyberSource solution, merchants gain support for both Chinese credit cards as well as debit cards from over 20 key banks.   » Continue Reading

Yesterday, Visa Inc. announced its first quarter of financial results since going public. The press release and an accompanying presentation are available online along with a webcast of the conference call held yesterday discussing the results.

CTST 2008, the largest payment, security and identification conference in the Americas, is being held this year May 12th through 15th at the Orange County Convention Center West, in Orlando, Fla. International industry leaders presenting during the Mobile and NFC Track include: 3G Americas, Aite Group, Authentec, Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cassis International, Cellular South, Citibank, FireThorn, First Annapolis Consulting, First Data, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Infineon Technologies, Inside Contactless, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, NXP Semiconductors, Sprint Nextel, StoLPaN, Venyon, ViVOtech and Vodafone.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2008. Net revenue for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.2 billion, a 29% increase versus the same period in 2007 with currency fluctuations (driven by movement of the euro and the Brazilian real relative to the U.S. dollar) contributing 5.1% of the increase in net revenue for the quarter MasterCard's gross dollar volume increased 14.1%, on a local currency basis, to $611 billion.

Keith Regan looks at Bill Me Later in a post on eCommerceTimes.com saying that "credit card-free alternative Bill Me Later has proven that merchants and consumers alike are hungry for alternatives."

Damian Paletta writes for the Wall St. Journal that "the Federal Reserve and two other regulators [OTS and NCUA] plan to propose strict policies on credit-card issuers after criticism that card companies charge too many hidden fees and unfairly raise interest rates on borrowers." He says the plan is expected to be introduced by the Fed at a meeting this Friday.

• CyberSource Announces First Quarter 2008 Financial Results
• Economic Times (India): RBI is looking at extending mobile-banking services to the alerge population
• SimpleTuition Adds Discover Student Loans
• BankServ Completes Mandatory FedLine Conversions Eight Months Prior to Federal Reserve Deadline
• Integrated Bank Technology and Recovery Solutions Partner to Assist Banks in Compliance Plans with New Federal Regulatory Standards
• Charlotte Observer: Charlotte IBM exec plugs into the bank biz
• 3i Infotech to buy Regulus Group for $80 mln
• Beyond Phishing - Cronto Helps De-Mystify the Growing Threat of Internet Banking Fraud with New Report
• Los Angeles Times: Fed criticized at hearing on Bank of America takeover of Countrywide

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Joseph Saunders has been named Vice President, Business Development, at Digital Resolve. Previously, Saunders was responsible for new market development at TARGUSinfo.

Karen Webster writes for the Catalyst Code blog about her view of mobile payments - which could be summarized as something like "too much buzz, not enough tough-minded thinking." She suspects industry analysts are just being too optimistic.

Instead, Webster argues: "Getting merchants and customers to adopt something new when, by and large, their experience today at the physical point of sale is pretty darn good, takes a whole lot more than just saying it is so or having technology that can enable neat new things."

Yesterday, we mentioned we were building a new page on Payments News with RSS feeds from payments and banking-related blogs. We had a number of responses from bloggers today and have updated the page to reflect those responses.

Are there any more blogs we should add - please let us know!

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency late last week issued new risk management guidance to banks on the subject of payment processors. The OCC said that 'certain merchants, such as telemarketers, pose a higher risk than other merchants and require additional due diligence and close monitoring.'   » Continue Reading

Visa Inc. has reported financial results for its second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2008. Net operating revenue was $1.5 billion with Visa's payments volume growing 19% year over year to $681 billion.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced that Journeys.com, a specialty retailer of footwear and accessories, has launched Bill Me Later on its web site. With the Bill Me Later payment service, consumers can conveniently and securely make online purchases without a credit card. Journeys.com is also extending the additional convenience and flexibility of no payments for 90 days to its customers.   » Continue Reading

In his article titled 'Mobiles begin calling the shots on banking and payments', Trevor Lloyd-Jones writes for Business Intelligence Middle East about mobile payments efforts in many countries around the world and interviews Mi-Pay's CTO Simon Cavil. 'The use of mobiles for banking and payments is transforming lives and economies, especially in the unbanked and rural areas of many countries without branches and other traditional banking channels, such as ATMs, fixed line telephones and the Internet.' Some fascinating reading! Dave Birch did a podcast interview with Simon Cavil a year ago.

First Data Corp. has announced an agreement to acquire InComm, a marketer, distributor and technology innovator of stored value gift and prepaid products. Specific terms and conditions of the agreement were not disclosed, but the transaction is expected to be accretive to First Data. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness will be attending tomorrow's FinovateStartup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene has pulled together an excellent program where forty financial services startups will "strut their stuff." Christophe Langlois from Visible Banking will be live blogging the event on Jim's NetBanker site. If you're also going to be there, let's get acquainted! We'll be blogging to Payments News as time permits and also commenting from @paymentsnews on Twitter.

Fair Isaac has announced the release of TRIAD adaptive control system version 8.3 providing credit grantors with access to 'improved flexibility and processing capabilities that accelerate the development and implementation of profitable decisions in account and customer management, at both the enterprise and portfolio levels.' Fair Isaac says that 65% of bankcards globally are processed on a Fair Isaac adaptive control system.   » Continue Reading

The International Payments Framework Group (IPF) has announced its decision to go forward with the next phase of the project. According to IPF, 'Phase II will improve the cross-border payments process through operating rules that will enable interoperability between domestic and international ACH systems.'   » Continue Reading

Aite Group has published a new report titled 'Usage Trends in Online and Mobile Banking: Upping the Ante' finding that reviews consumer adoption trends for online and mobile banking services over the next two years.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard will be announcing financial results for the first quarter 2008 tomorrow morning before the markets open. A webcast to discuss the results is scheduled for Tuesday morning, April 29, beginning at 9 AM Easter.

Visa Inc. will be announcing its financial results for the first quarter 2008 later today after the markets close. A conference call has been scheduled for 2 PM Eastern to discuss the results and will be available via webcast.

APACS has confirmed plans for the launch of the new Faster Payments Service on May 27th. Beginning then, the FPS founding banks will be gradually implementing their own plans to deliver the new service to their customers. According to APACS, 'the new service will benefit customers by speeding up one-off payments made over the internet or by phone, reducing the current three-day clearing timescale to enable these payments to clear within hours, not days. For the very first time it will also be possible to make these payments all day every day.'   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Paying breach bill may not buy Hannaford full data protection', Jaikumar Vijayan writes for Computerworld about Hannaford's discussion last week that it is spending millions of dollars on new IT security tools. The grocer last week said it has plans to encrypt all payment card data on its internal network.

A friend of ours over the weekend wondered what the total cost to the industry of PCI compliance will be. Seems like somewhere between $100 million and $1 billion? What do you think? Comments?

• ArkansasBusiness.com: Technologies Differ For Mobile Banking Services
• Netcordia Solves Key PCI Compliance Vulnerability: the Configuration of Information Networks
• mChek on Android : Safe, Smart and Simple payment Solution
• Guardian: London Times offers prepay card
• PaySimple: Payment Processing Leader Helps Florist Collect Payments Quickly
• Bank Systems & Technology: Analytics Are Becoming Increasingly Important Tools in Banks’ Customer Retention Strategies
• New York Times DealBook: For Bank Bosses, a Week on the Hotseat
• Iowa Banking Law Blog: UK Rules that Overdraft Fees Can be Judged for Fairness
• SaaS Leaders, CORESense and SPS Commerce, Partner to Offer Integrated Supply Chain Solution for Mid-Market Retailers
• Reuters: India's Essar buys stake in mobile payment provider

Tell us about it! We're building a one page listing of updated content from other payments and banking-related blogs that we find worth a regular daily read. If you've got a payments or banking-related blog and think your blog should be listed, please send us your information via the link included on that page!

in an article about merchant-centric loyalty programs, Kelli B. Grant writes for the Wall St. Journal about how 'retailers are hoping to get customers back into their stores is by offering all sorts of new rewards programs and in-store bonuses to their most loyal customers.'

The Sunday Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune has an article titled "Pay by Touch's backers claim fingers burned" by reporter Matt McKinney that takes a look back at Pay By Touch. On March 19, 2008, Pay By Touch shuttered its biometric-based payment service.

Here's a review of this week's top stories on Payments News. If you missed it, last week's Weekly Wrap is here.

• Conferences
  
  • Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness attended this week's Digital Money Forum in London. Scott had a great time in London and posted a number of articles from the Forum.
• First Quarter 2008 Financial Results
• Bank of America reported first quarter results including announcing it has 840,000 mobile banking subscribers and 8 million customers enrolled in the Keep the Change program. (See more Bank of America news.)
• American Express reported first quarter financial results. (See more American Express news.)
• Contactless Payments News
  • Javelin Strategy & Research has released a new report titled 'Contactless Strategy & Forecast'. (See more Contactless Payments news.)
• Eco-Friendly Payments
  
  • Wells Fargo announced several Earth Day 2008 initiatives. (See more Wells Fargo news.)
  • Fiserv and SunTrust announced a program to incent customers to migrate to electronic bill paymet. (See more Fiserv and SunTrust news.)
• Gift Card News
  
  • More merchants followed Kroger's lead last week and announced incentives to get consumers to cash their economic stimulus checks into merchant-specific gift cards (See more Gift Card news.)
• Legal and Regulatory News
  
  • The Reserve Bank of Australia released preliminary conclusions from its 2007/08 review of the payments system reforms undertaken by the Payments System Board.
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston updated its Consumer Payments Research Reference Guide. 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".
  • UK banks lost a court case challenging overdraft fees on checking accounts.
  • The Reserve Bank of India published preliminary plans to require payments companies to register and be authorized to provide services in India.
  • The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a class-action lawsuit against a group of banks that force their credit card customers to use arbitration instead of the courts for settling disputes.
• Mobile Payments News
  
  • PayPal and Sprint Nextel are working together on a mobile payments application. (See more PayPal Mobile and Mobile Payments news.)
  • Obopay confirmed a new $20 million financing round and added two new board members. (See more Obopay and Mobile Payments news.)
• PCI Compliance News
  • The PCI Security Standards Council announced the availability of two Information Supplements providing further clarification for PCI DSS requirement 11.3 , regarding penetration testing, and Requirement 6.6, regarding application code review and application firewalls. (See more PCI Compliance news.)
• Open Job Listings on PaymentsJobs.com
  
  • Account Relationship Manager at Skylight Financial (Atlanta, Georgia)
  • Product Manager at Skylight Financial (Atlanta, Georgia)
  • Director, Public Relations at Chase Paymentech (Dallas, Texas)
  • Retail Product Manager at PreCash, Inc. (Portland, Oregon)
  • Project Manager at FSV Payment Systems (Jacksonville, Florida)
  • Senior Analyst at Mercator Advisory Group (Waltham, Massachusetts)
  • Manager, Fraud and Risk at PayCycle (Palo Alto, California)
  • Vice President / Director Business Development at i2c (Redwood City, California)
  • Account Executive at FirstCard Merchant Services (Chicago, Illinois)
  • Find and hire the best! Post your current job openings on PaymentsJobs.com!
• Upcoming Glenbrook Payments Education Offerings
  
  • Roundtable on Emerging Payments: Cross-Border eCommerce: Pot of Gold and Rainbow of Fraud - San Francisco Bay Area - May 7
  • Workshop on The Structure of the Merchant Payments Marketplace - San Francisco Bay Area - June 10
  • Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp - San Francisco Bay Area - June 11-12

You can find all of our Weekly Wrap summaries in the Payments News Weekly Wrap Archive.

Stimulated by an American Banker interview with Wachovia's card chief Steve Boehm, David Evans posts on the Catalyst Code blog about contactless payments: "Contactless – like smart cards – is unfortunately a technology in search of a business model to support it."

The issue here is mandatory arbitration clauses in US credit card issuer agreements. Leslie Gevirtz reports for Reuters that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has 'reinstated a class-action suit Friday against a group of banks that force their credit card customers to use arbitration instead of the courts to settle disputes.' The court's full decision is available online.

In an article titled 'MasterCard CEO gets paid $11 million for 2007', Madlen Read reports for the AP that 'MasterCard Inc.'s president and chief executive, Robert W. Selander, received compensation valued at $11 million in 2007.' Details are included in MasterCard's recent Schedule 14A filing with the SEC.

In an article titled "RBI to regulate MasterCard, Visa and Western Union", India's Economic Times reports on a draft proposal posted to the Reserve Bank of India's website today implementing provisions of India's Payment and Settlement Systems Act of 2007 that would require "every person desirous of commencing or carrying on a payment system ... [to] submit an application to the Reserve Bank for authorization."   » Continue Reading

Last Friday, the Irish Payment Services Organization held its National Payments Conference 2008. The conference presentations are available online. I found the Nordea presentation (but it's not about Ireland!) particularly interesting.

Fiserv and SunTrust have announced 'they will donate one tree for every SunTrust customer who signs up for electronic bill (e-bill) activation or pays at least three bills online or via a mobile phone between April 14 and June 30, 2008. With assistance from the Arbor Day Foundation, Fiserv and SunTrust have set a goal of planting more than 10,000 trees as part of the campaign.'   » Continue Reading

• A Chat With Sanjay Swamy - CEO of mChek
• TheStreet.com: Credit-Card Debt: The Next Possible Implosion
• Bank Systems & Technology: MCNB Banks Unlocks the Potential of Electronic Check Capture

In an article titled "PayPal Launches Its First Mobile Service on a Downloadable Application", Digital Transactions reports that PayPal is one of the mobile payments offerings included in Sprint Nextel's MyMoneyManager application. Sprint Nextel says "think of it as a web browser where you add bookmarks to all of your financial services providers on your phone." The article quotes Menekse Gencer, director of business development PayPal’s mobile group: "Our intent is to make PayPal ubiquitous on the handset."

Obopay has announced the closing of its fourth round of venture funding, raising $20 million along with adding two new board members. Essar Communications Holdings Limited, the telecom subsidiary of Essar Global Limited, led the round. The two new board members are K B Rajendran, Senior Vice President, Essar Global Limited and Robert G. Hottensen, Jr., Senior Vice President for Public Equity at Olayan America Corporation.   » Continue Reading

Jayne O'Donnell and Erin Kutz write for USA TODAY that 'a handful of retail chains are dangling discounts and promotions to try to get people to spend their [tax rebate] checks in the companies' stores.' The article lists a number of retailers who are offering the opportunity for customers to exchange their rebate checks for gift cards typically with a 10% increase in value over the value of the rebate check itself.

American Express has reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2008 with net income from continuing operations down 11% compared to the same quarter last year while revenues net of interest expense were up 11%.   » Continue Reading

Social personal finance website Wesabe has announced the launch of a new "Tips" feature that provides members with customized, side-by-side comparisons of competing businesses across a number of data points. Wesabe says that 'Tips gives members financial power by arming them with the most comprehensive mix of purchase behavior data, consumer satisfaction ratings and advice.'   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has filed its annual Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement with the SEC in advance of its upcoming annual meeting of shareholders scheduled for Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at MasterCard headquarters in Purchase, NY. Included are details regarding candidates for election to the board of directors along with compensation details for principal executive officers of the company.

The afternoon session on day 2 of the Digital Money Forum was devoted to discussions about mobile payments. Samee Zafar from Edgar Dunn & Co. chaired the afternoon session and introduced Diane Coyle (who spoke on Mobile Money in Emerging Markets), Dirk-Jan de Haan (who spoke on experience from the Payter NFC trial in Rotterdam), and Guido Manglagalli from Visa EU who spoke about Visa's Mobile Platform and an NFC trial currently underway in London.   » Continue Reading

At mid-day today at the Digital Money Forum in London, five of us bank/payments bloggers took the stage for a lively discussion about blogs in financial services. The participants were Dave Birch from the Digital Money Forum blog (and the superb producer/director of this whole Forum!), Chris Skinner of TheFinanser.com, Colin Henderson of The BankWatch, Aneace Haddad of Aneace's Blog, and me, Scott Loftesness, of Payments News. The panel was introduced and deftly moderated by Steve Bowbrick.   » Continue Reading

Consumer groups have been active in the US pointing out the overdraft charges that banks charge their checking account customers for non-sufficient funds. In the UK, the issue has been litigated and the BBC reports today that "the UK's biggest banks have lost a test case about overdraft charges." The Guardians headline reads "Customers in line for billions as banks lose unfair charges case." The court decision is available online .

We're back at the Digital Money Forum in London for the day 2 agenda. This morning's topics are focused primarily on European payments issues - SEPA in particular in presentations by Charles Bryan and John Chaplin.

Aneace has done a great job on blogging the two SEPA sessions this morning. In particular, I enjoyed John Chaplin's eight SEPA predictions - along with the two "jokers" that could change everything.

WebMoney also presented on their ecommerce payment system based in Moscow. Colin blogs about WebMoney here.

• Digital Transactions: PayPal Launches Its First Mobile Service on a Downloadable Application
• ComputerWeekly: PayPal to extend Teradata data warehouse
• Target says good-bye to credit-card debt
• Tri-Counties Bank: Free Checking Just Got Mighty Interest-ing
• eMarketer: Sick of Gas Prices, Shoppers Head Online
• GlobalCollect Expands its Global Presence by Opening an Asia-Pacific Office in Singapore

Javelin Strategy & Research has released a new report titled 'Contactless Strategy & Forecast' ( Preview) that reports findings about how contactless technology will become mainstream for payment card transactions. According to Javelin, the report 'highlights how the promotion of non-network payment products will drive acceptance, thwart competition and pave the path for what card networks and issuers consider to be the eventual goal — mobile payments. In turn, the technologies and strategies described in the report will lead to radical changes in personal finance for every consumer, merchant and financial institution.'   » Continue Reading

This morning's panel titled 'Omelettes and Eggs: Innovation' at the Digital Money Forum explored the extremes of the issues of innovation in payments.

Perhaps the most basic question asked from the audience was 'why does innovation matter?' "Because it does" wasn't exactly the collective answer from the panel - but the question got to the point that it's not often that technology itself drives innovation. (Opening new markets is, to me, perhaps the best answer).

A venture investor asked the panel where theyd' put their own money to work. Among the answers from the panel: prepaid and mobile, opportunities that might emerge from new real-time 'instant' payments (e.g. FPS in the UK), innovations that truly address user (as opposed to merchant) needs and can demostrate user adoption, and a prepaid solution that truly addresses the needs of minors.

Just listened to a fascinating talk at today's Digital Money Forum in London by Ronnie O'Toole, Chief Economist of the National Irish Bank. Last November, the bank provided a pre-budget submission to the Irish Department of Finance that contained four recommendations about how to reduce inefficiencies in the Irish payment system (Dave Birch blogged about it here). One of the four recommendations was to require that taxis in the country be equipped to for card-based payments as a compulsory measure. We've seen other examples of where transit payments have been the focal point for shifting from cash to electronic payments. Glenbrook's Carol Benson blogged about her experience with card-based taxi payments in New York City late last year.

[Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness writes...] I'm in London this morning at the Eleventh Annual Digital Money Forum hosted by Consult Hyperion. This year's Forum is sponsored by Visa Europe and WebMoney with support from ACI.

At this morning's session, about 100 attendees will be discussing a range of payments related topics including innovation in general as well as the future of retail banking, the future of money and, indeed, the future of cash. I'll be participating on a panel discussion at tomorrow's session titled "Meet the Bloggers".

[Update: Colin's blogging from the Forum too - with pictures! So is Aneace!]

• New York Times: Debt Collection a New Frontier of India Outsourcing
• House Financial Services Committee Members Call on Congress to Prevent Implementation of Internet Gambling Ban
• Heartland’s Give Something Back Network Receives “Best in Payments” Editor’s Choice Award
• BillCharger.com: New Service Lets Users Pay Any Bill Online With Their Credit Card
• New Revolution MoneyExchange Buttons Helps Sellers Attract More Business
• VeriSign's Green Bar Signals Safe Online Banking With HSBC
• Burlington Free Press Editorial: Sharing the blame for credit card debt
• GlobalPlatform Finalizes Device Application Security Management (DASM) Specification
• Retailers to Send Up to 3 Billion 'Mobile Coupons' to Phone Users by 2011, According to Juniper Research
• Dubai: Credit card companies intensify competition (4% cash back!)

The PCI Security Standards Council has announced the availability of two Information Supplements providing further clarification for PCI DSS requirement 11.3 , regarding penetration testing, and Requirement 6.6 , regarding application code review and application firewalls. Both of these information supplements provide guidance to help merchants and service providers meet these two requirements in support of their PCI DSS compliance efforts.   » Continue Reading

American Express and Delta Air Lines have announced the launch of Delta Reserve Credit Card and the Delta Reserve for Business Credit Card, new premium co-branded credit cards for U.S.-based consumers. According to the two companies, 'the Delta Reserve Credit Cards are designed to cater to the needs of Delta’s on-the-go customers and provides Cardmembers with a greatly enhanced travel experience through benefits such as the ability to earn Medallion® Qualification Miles (MQMs) faster, share MQMs with family and friends for the first time ever, access to the dedicated Breezeway priority boarding lane and frequent traveler security line, Delta Crown Room Clubs access, and 24-7 concierge services.' The cards have an annual fee of $450.   » Continue Reading

Forrester's Benjamin Ensor and Alexander Hesse have published a new report titled "NFC Technology Is Revitalizing Mobile Payments". While that title certainly sounds optimistic, their subtitle adds a bit more drama: "But Mobile Contactless Payments Face Huge Adoption Hurdles". From the abstract: "But technology isn't the main barrier to wider mobile payment adoption in developed markets. Mobile contactless payment systems based on the NFC standard face many of the same adoption hurdles as other new payment systems."

Experian and Credit Builders Alliance (CBA) have announced the launch of a data-reporting partnership that enables CBA's members to report microloan repayment data to Experian to help thousands of small business entrepreneurs build a credit history.   » Continue Reading

On the Credit Slips blog, in a post titled "MasterCard's Machiavellian Twist", Angie Letwin, soon to be Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Law School in Austin, writes about her recent paper titled "Beyond Usury: A Study of Credit Card Use and Preference Among Low-Income Consumers" and compares some of her conclusions about control features useful to consumers in managing their credit card use to the new features MasterCard recently introduced with its "inControl" commercial card product designed for corporate purchasing use. She hopes that "perhaps eventually this could lead to products that would help consumers control their own spending as well."

James Gardner, Head of Innovation and Research at a major UK bank, writes a great blog called BankerWatch. In one of his recent posts titled "A New Kind of Event Please," he laments the events that vendors try to stage to interest bankers in "hot issues" and, more likely, the vendors latest products.

Instead of those kinds of events, Gardner says he's looking for more interesting and thought provoking stuff such as: "I'd like an event that would tell me how to run a bank in the cloud."

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, spoke at Paul Graham's Startup School 2008 conference at Stanford over the weekend. Bezos spent his talk focused on "the cloud" - what Amazon's doing with web services (AWS). All you have to do is to look at the first slide in his talk to see how "the cloud" is becoming an important business.

TSYS has announced the renewal of a long-term agreement with Target Corporation to service its REDcard portfolio. The multi-year agreement will include systems processing for the Target Visa Credit Card, Target Credit CardS, Target Check Card and the Target Business Card. According to TSYS, Target was recently named by the Nilson Report as one of the top-five Visa credit card issuers, with more than 21.4 million accounts on file. Target began working with TSYS in 2000 for the launch of its Visa product. TSYS began supporting the Target Credit Card portfolio in 2005.   » Continue Reading

• AuctionBytes: Google Checkout Employs 'Eco' Viral Marketing
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial: Credit the cardholder - It sounds nice, but banning 'universal default' would be a risky move in a stagnant economy
• AP: Mobile banking, still unpopular in the US, could attract new, younger customers
• YouTube: mChek Live demo of mobile phone e-Commerce
• Global Payments Announces Agreement to Extend National Bank of Canada Marketing Alliance Agreement through 2017
• eGistics and US Dataworks Announce Strategic Alliance for Integrated Distributed Capture and Archive Services
• JPMorgan Commits $30 Million to Implement Central Platform for Global Services
• Alliance Data's Canadian Loyalty Business Signs Multi-Year Renewal With Leading Canadian Home Improvement Retailer RONA
• Microsoft Releases Latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report
• Bankrate.com: Fine print hides convenience-check cost
• Bankrate.com: 7 easy ways to be victimized by ID thieves
• Sun Microsystems and Java Card Forum Announce Next Generation of Industry Leading Java Card Technology
• Centrix Introduces ACH Positive Pay to Detect Transaction Fraud in Commercial Payments