Payments News - Weekly Wrap - June 14, 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.

• American Express News
  • Virgin Atlantic Airways has launched a new rewards credit card, the Virgin Atlantic American Express Card issued by Bank of America. (See more American Express, Bank of America, Card Reward Program and Credit Card news.)
• Banking Industry News
  • Chase has announced Chase Exclusives - calling it "one of the banking industry’s widest ranging package of rewards" to encourage its checking account customers to expand their relationship with the bank. (See more Banking Industry and Chase news.)
  • neoSaej, a developer of online auction marketplaces, has launched MoneyAisle.com - calling it "the first and only Web site where banks competitively bid for customers through live secure auctions. (See more Banking Industry news.)
• Credit Card News
  • Federal Reserve Governor Randall S. Kroszner gave a speech titled "Protecting Consumers in the Credit Marketplace" at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Community Development Policy Summit in which he spoke to the Fed's activities with respect to better information disclosure to consumers about credit card terms as well as preventing certain "abusive practices" by credit card issuers. (See more Credit Card news.)
  • Democratic Presumptive Nominee Barack Obama spoke out on Wednesday about the practices of credit card issuers - saying that "credit card companies have been using unfair and deceptive practices to trick Americans into signing agreements they can’t afford." (See more Credit Card news.)
  • The FDIC and the FTC took action against CompuCredit and two of its sponsoring banks for what the federal agencies claim has been deceptive consumer marketing practices. (See more Card Issuers, Credit Cards and Financial Regulators news.)
• Debit Card News
  • The US Treasury Department has begun a rollout of Direct Express MasterCard debit cards for the 2.1 million Social Security recipients who don't have bank accounts and can't receive electronic payment of their benefits. (See more Debit Card, Government Payments, and Prepaid Card news.)
• Interchange Fee News
  • MasterCard Europe announced that as of June 21, 2008 it is temporarily repealing its current MasterCard and Maestro intra-EEA cross-border consumer card interchange fees in conformity with the European Commission's December 19, 2007 decision. (See more Interchange Fee and MasterCard news).
  • In a paper titled "Credit Card Interchange Fees: Debunking Six Myths" , Steven Semeraro, Associate Professor of Law and Associate Dean at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, writes about credit card interchange fees. (See more Interchange Fee news).
• Mobile Banking News
  
  • Bank of America has announced that it has surpassed one million unique active mobile banking customers. (See more Bank of America and Mobile Banking news.)
  • Apple introduced the new iPhone 3G on Monday - and NetBanker suggested ways that bankers should think about using the new smartphone device. (See more Mobile Banking and Mobile Technology news.)
  • Wells Fargo has announced the addition of wire transfer services and image positive pay functionality to its CEO Mobile service. (See more Mobile Banking and Wells Fargo news.)
• Mobile Payments News
  
  • Nielsen Mobile reports that "9 million US mobile subscribers say they have used their mobile phone to pay for goods or services, and half of all data users (49 percent) say they expect to participate in mobile commerce in the future." (See more Mobile Payments news.)
  • The Reserve Bank of India has published a "Draft Operating Guidelines for Mobile Payments in India". (See more India and Mobile Payments news.)
• PayPal News
  • The Australian Competition and Consumer Commissionannounced it has issued a draft notice proposing to revoke a notification by eBay International on 11 April 2008 regarding requiring eBay sellers in Australia only use PayPal. eBay says it's going to fight the ruling. (See more Australia, Ecommerce Payments and PayPal news.)
• Unbanked/Underbanked News
  
  • The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) has released initial findings from its national segmentation study of the underbanked market. (See more Banking Industry and Unbanked news.)
• Visa News
  
  • Visa has released an updated commercial payment card best practices study that it says "reveals procure-to-pay (P2P) automation is among leading factors contributing to more efficient business processes and cost savings at today’s companies across the globe." (See more Commercial Card and Visa news.)
• Open Job Listings on PaymentsJobs.com
  
  • Finance Program Manager at Confidential (San Mateo, California)
  • Director, Consumer Protection at Jewelry Television (Knoxville, Tennessee)
  • Debit Card Product Manager at BB&T (Raleigh, North Carolina)
  • Electronic Payments Product Manager at BB&T (Wilson, North Carolina)
  • Product Manager - Remittance Solutions at Creditron (Gaithersburg, Maryland)
  • Senior Product Manager - Remittance Solutions at Creditrron (Mississauga, Canada)
  • VP Partnerships (Marketing) at Western Payments Alliance (San Francisco, California)
  • Assistant Vice President of Educational Programs at Western Payments Alliance (San Francisco, California)
  • Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Western Payments Alliance (San Francisco, California)
  • Open Sales Position E-Commerce Company at preCharge.com (New York)
• Upcoming Glenbrook Payments Education Offerings
  
  • Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp - San Francisco Bay Area - October 15-16

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!