In an article titled "The next credit crunch", Fortune senior editor at large writes that "we may be approaching the end of the most worrisome bubble of all: the standard-of-living bubble."

The Bank of Canada has published a new discussion paper titled "Merchant Acceptance, Costs, and Perceptions of Retail Payments: A Canadian Survey" by Carlos Arango and Varya Taylor. READ MORE »

PayPal is holding one of its weekly webinars later this morning on the subject of "Building Loyal Customers to Increase Profitability". Speakers include David Daniels, vice president and research director at JupiterResearch, and Jeff Wisot, vice president of marketing at Buy.com.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's Payments System Board has announced that it will be pursuing reforms of some PayPal policies: "Over recent months, the Board has received a number of comments on the no-surcharge and no-steering rules that apply to payments using the PayPal system as well as the mandated acceptance of PayPal on eBay’s auction site. Where no-surcharge and no-steering rules have existed in other systems, the Board has encouraged their removal on the grounds that these rules can diminish competition in the payments system. Consistent with this, the Bank will shortly be holding discussions with PayPal with a view to seeking the removal of these rules."

• CreditCards.com 'Taking Charge' survey: People adapt card use to changed economy
• Business Week: Credit Cards Replace Small Business Loans
• Washington Post's Security Fix Blog: Web Fraud 2.0: Validating Your Stolen Goods
• IBM: Web Merchant Enlists Power Players to Fight Credit Card Fraud
• Aberdeen Group: Addressing PCI Compliance Takes Longer, Costs More Than Expected
• Optimized Payments Consulting Helps Retail Merchants Lower Credit Card Processing Costs With New Research Paper
• eBay Supports Sellers With Dramatically Lower Listing Fee