Payments News - Weekly Wrap - June 28, 2008

Here's a review of this week's top stories on Payments News. If you missed it, last week's Weekly Wrap is here. Back to the future!: for fun, click for this same week's activity a year ago here on Payments News!

Looking for more? Checkout our Other Payments and Banking Blogs page for more from the blogosphere about the worlds of payments and banking.

Quote of the week: "There's no place to hide," said Brian Riley, research director at the Tower Group and an industry veteran. "I have never seen real estate, consumer loans and credit cards take a hit at the same time. Credit card companies are especially vulnerable because they are the last in line to receive payments from customers."

• American Express News
  • American Express announced an agreement with MasterCard Inc. to drop a lawsuit alleging that MasterCard had illegally blocked American Express from the bank-issued card business in the United States. (See more American Express and MasterCard news.)
  • Rearden Commerce and American Express announced American Express Anywhere - calling it "an innovative new mobile service that enables corporate customers to manage travel details and business through their BlackBerry smartphones." (See more American Express news.)
• Credit Card News
  • Eric Dash of the New York Times reported on how some credit card issuers are reducing the amount of available credit on their credit cards for millions of Americans. (See more Credit Card news.)
• Interchange Fee News
  • Visa announced that it is implementing processing and interchange fee changes that will result in benefits for American consumers and fuel merchants frustrated by rising prices at the pump. (See more Interchange Fee and Visa news.)
  • The Merchants Payments Coalition commented on Visa's announcement of changes to its interchange fees and authorization holds for fuel purchases. (See more Interchange Fee and Visa news.)
  • The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) announced that "the nation’s 115,000-plus convenience stores will communicate their outrage over devastating credit card fees via pumptoppers that will educate consumers and Congress about the problem." NACS will be making "pumptoppers" available free of charge to retailers "communicating the industry’s fight against sky-high interchange rates." (See more Interchange Fee news.)
• Loyalty Program News
  • Chockstone and RBS Lynk have announced a strategic partnership to provide loyalty services to RBS Lynk restaurant merchants. (See more Chockstone, Loyalty Programs and RBS Lynk news.)
• MasterCard News
  • Michael Manchisi was named chief technology officer at MasterCard Worldwide. (See more MasterCard news.)
• Mobile Banking News
  
  • Mobile Money Ventures, a joint venture of Citi and SK Telecom, announced that its mobile financial services solution is compatible with Android, a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. (See more Mobile Banking and Mobile Payments news.)
• PayPal News
  • Overstock.com announced it is now giving shoppers the ability to shop and pay later with the promotional financing service, PayPal Pay Later. (See more Ecommerce Payments and PayPal news.)
  • Blockbuster announced it is now accepting PayPal as a way to make purchases on the company's web site http://www.blockbuster.com. (See more Ecommerce Payments and PayPal news.)
  • PayPal has begun celebrating its 10th anniversary. (See more Ecommerce Payments and PayPal news.)
• Person-to-Person Lending News
  • On his NetBanker blog, Jim Bruene took a deeper look at Lending Club's S-1 Registration Statement. (See more Person-to-Person Lending news.)
• Prepaid Card News
  • NetSpend and Skylight Financial announced signing of a definitive merger agreement to combine business operations. (See more NetSpend and Prepaid Card news.)
• Visa News
  • Visa introduced the Visa Business Network, calling it "the first-ever application dedicated to connecting small businesses on Facebook.
• Open Job Listings on PaymentsJobs.com
  
  • Director Customer Support and Implementation at Purepay (Gaithersburg, Maryland)
  • Manager-Network Technical Operations at American Express (Phoenix, Arizona)
  • Customer Insights Manager - Bankcard/Co-Brand at Alliance Data (Columbus, Ohio)
  • Risk Operations Manager at CyberSource (Mountain View, California)
  • Sr. Product Marketing Manager at CyberSource (Mountain View, California)
  • Web Marketing Manager at CyberSource (Mountain View, California)
  • Finance Program Manager at Confidential (San Mateo, California)
  • Director, Consumer Protection at Jewelry Television (Knoxville, Tennessee)
• Upcoming Glenbrook Payments Education Offerings
  
  • Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp - San Francisco Bay Area - October 15-16
  • Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp - Denver - December 3-4

You can find all of our Weekly Wrap summaries in the Payments News Weekly Wrap Archive. They're published every Saturday and look back at the highlights of the week's news. Please send us on how we can improve the Weekly Wrap!