The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) has released its latest quarterly statistics of payments fraud data for cheques, debit cards, credit cards and charge cards in Australia for the 12 months to December 31, 2007 showing that Australia’s total rate of fraud (on cheques and payment cards) has remained steady, dropping only slightly from 6.3 cents (2006) to 6.2 cents for every $1,000 of payments. READ MORE »

U.S. Bank has announced it has partnered with Visa to issue debit cards with the Visa payWave feature to debit cardholders in California, Colorado, Missouri, and Utah. READ MORE »

Recently, Colin Mulliner published a paper describing vulnerabilities associated with the use of NFC "smart posters" - in particular, NFC-equipped devices relying on their authenticity. Dave Birch explores some of the implications in a post on the Digital Identify Forum blog.

A new "green banking" study by Javelin Strategy & Research finds that 3 out of 4 consumers are still "clinging to paper statements". READ MORE »

Bankrate.com has published its latest look at credit cards with cash-back rewards features. Leslie McFadden writes: "When it comes to rewards credit cards, Americans love cash back. According to TNS Global's Financial Services research, 57.4 percent of rewards cardholders have cash-back cards."

• NY Times: Mr. Bill Returns (in One Piece) to Pitch a Debit Card (MasterCard)
• UK: 66% Leap in Identity Fraud Cases, According to Latest Insight from Experian
• Synovate Study Compares Online Behavior of Connected Hispanics, African-Americans and General Market Consumers
• Consumer Reports Finds Not Many Rewards Programs Are Worth the Effort
• Banner Bank Unveils Mobile Banking Service
• PayNet and Fair Isaac Introduce the New SBSS PayNet 1.0 Model Suite
• VeriFone Expands European Market Strategy
• WaMu's Board Adopts New Governance Measures
• Heartland Payment Systems Completes Acquisition of Alliance Data's Network Services Business
• Obopay Implements SafeNet Hardware Security Module to Enhance Mobile Payments Security
• Gaming VC Puts Odds in Its Favor by Choosing Ethoca's Anti-Fraud Community to Manage Online Fraud Risk
• Mobile Financial Services '08: Opening up the Mobile Wallet - July 29-30 - Denver
• New York Times: Thompson Is Ousted as Wachovia Chief Executive
• China Unionpay plans to operate payment network in Taiwan
• WSJ: TransUnion Aims To Settle Case Of Consumer Data