Two important new books about security - and payments security in particular - arrived on my desk this week.

The first book - the second edition of Ross Anderson's Security Engineering - provides fascinating insights into all of those things that are often overlooked when designing secure systems. Anderson provides a comprehensive survey of the issues, the nature of successful attacks, with serious recommendations on how to simply do better across a range of security applications. This is a big book - not exactly suited for reading on the beach - but important nonetheless! Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars by Amazon.com reviewers.

The second book - Zero Day Threat by Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz - provides real insights into the threats that attackers are exploiting to gain the necessary information to take over online banking, PayPal, brokerage, and other accounts. If "know your enemy" makes sense to you, then you'll find Zero Day Threat of great interest. Zero Day Threat is 5-star rated by Amazon.com reviewers.

Both of these books have just been added to the first page of the Payments News Bookstore on Amazon.com.

The Bancorp Payment Solutions Group, a division of The Bancorp Bank, has announced it will be teaming with Deluxe Corporation, to offer the DeluxeCard agent bank program providing a turnkey prepaid card service to financial institutions.   » Continue Reading

Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal about Thursday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008. Sidel writes that one effect of the legislation, if passed and signed into law, would reduce interchange fees paid to banks and, therefore, force issuing banks to cut back on their card reward programs. While merchants are saying that any interchange fee reductions would be passed along to consumers through lower prices, many in the industry say that is unlikely to be the case - and point to the lack of price reductions following action taken by the Reserve Bank of Australia that cut interchange fees significantly in that country.

SWIFT's 2007 Annual Report is available for download .

"SWIFT is a community-inspired co-operative, founded by and for the financial services industry. We work globally with more than 8,300 organisations including banks, market infrastructures, securities institutions, corporations, network providers, business partners and technology companies to ensure the financial world can carry out its business operations with certainty."

[Hat tip: Chris Skinner]

Nortel has released results of a new study of the 'Culture of Connectivity' saying we're entering a period of hyperconnectivity. One of the findings: when asked which item people would take if they had to leave the house for 24 hours, more than 38 percent of global respondents chose their mobile phone over their wallet, keys, laptop and MP3 player. Less than 30 percent chose their wallet first. In Latin America, more than 50 percent chose their mobile phone over any other item. The hyperconnecteds preferred leaving with their laptops. The study is available online with registration. They also have a blog on hyperconnectivity.

Launched two and a half years ago, Bank of America's Keep the Change savings program has helped its customers save more than one billion dollars in customer round-ups and bank-matching funds, the bank announced today.   » Continue Reading

The Federal Reserve Banks (FRBs) and The Clearing House Payments Company (TCH) have announced plans to implement enhanced message formats to accommodate both cover payments and payments containing business remittance information on their respective U.S. dollar wire transfer systems, the Fedwire® Funds Service and CHIPS.   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance has announced the 2008 award winners for "Outstanding Smart Card Achievement" (OSCA) in the North American and Latin American smart card industry during its annual conference, taking place at the CTST 2008 The Americas Conference and Exhibition in Orlando this week.   » Continue Reading

In an economic environment where many workers are feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living, Nursefinders Inc., one of the nation’s largest healthcare staffing providers, has announced that it is offering daily salary payments to temporary employees who have registered at no cost for a Chase Payroll Card. Upon completion of a daily work shift, an employee’s payroll card account is credited with salary payment as quickly as two hours after an approved time card is submitted.   » Continue Reading

Blackhawk Network has announced the winners of its Hawk Awards, honoring four companies’ and one industry leader’s excellence in the gift card industry. Winners were chosen in several areas; Card Design, Product Innovation, Industry Achievement and Industry Pioneer.   » Continue Reading

A new Online Banking Report has been published titled 'Online Investing Communities: Will social networking revolutionize saving & investing?'. From the announcement: 'We believe social networking will eventually play a large role in online investing, and evidently we are not alone. We found 54 companies involved in investment information exchange and only six of those have monthly traffic of 100,000 or more.'

The NACHA Board of Directors has selected Janet O. Estep, most recently an executive vice president with U.S. Bank, to succeed Elliott McEntee, who will retire as president and chief executive officer at the end of 2008. During the transition period, Estep will serve as president and chief operating officer and McEntee will continue as chief executive officer.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Welch pushes bill to trim back credit card fees on businesses' in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, Peter Hirschfeld reports from Vermont about Rep. Peter Welch's news conference yesterday where he attacked 'rising credit card fees' and announced plans to introduce new legislation concerning them later this week. "It's a near monopoly they have," Welch said of VISA and MasterCard. "And, as is often the case with monopoly power, it's abused." More information is available on Welch's web site.

INSIDE Contactless has announced that shipments of its MicroPass intelligent payment platform for contactless payment cards has surpassed 50 million units. According to the company, 'MicroPass is used to power more certified card products than any other contactless technology, providing issuers with broad choices for card manufacturing. Its low power and high performance, combined with the industry's fastest transaction time and outstanding read distance, enables MicroPass to deliver a superior cardholder experience for a broad range of innovative uses.'   » Continue Reading

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