Here's a review of this week's top stories on Payments News. If you missed it, last week's Weekly Wrap is here.

• Conferences
  
  • Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness attended this week's Finovate Startup conference in San Francisco and blogged in real-time here on Payments News as the companies were presenting.
• First Quarter 2008 Financial Results
• Visa Inc. reported its first ever quarterly financial report as a public company. Visa also announced its first corporate responsiblity program in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative. (See more Visa news.)
• MasterCard Worldwide reported financial results for the first quarter noting that gross dollar volume grew 14.1% (See more MasterCard news.)
• TSYS reported first quarter financial results and held its first-ever annual shareholder meeting since it became in independent public company. (See more TSYS news.)
• China News
  • CyberSource announced an ecommerce partnership with PayEase in China. (See more CyberSource and China news.)
• Contactless Payments News
  • The upcoming CTST 2008 conference being held in Orlando May 12-15 will focus on NFC contactless payments. (See more contactless, NFC and mobile payments news.)
  • MasterCard announced that it was increasing its no-signature required threshold on PayPass contactless payments in Canada to $50. (See more Canada, contactless and MasterCard news.)
  • Global Payments announced it was supporting MasterCard PayPass contactless acceptance at Pioneer Petroleums in Canada. (See more Canada, contactless, Global Payments and MasterCard news.)
• Debit Card News
  • Pulse issued its annual update to its US Debit Issuer Study. (See more Debit Card news.)
  • Phoenix Payments announced the results of its 2007 Consumer Payments Preferences and Usage Study: Debit Card Opportunities and Challenges<. (See more Debit Card news.)
• Interchange Fee News
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Payment Systems Research group published a new paper titled "Developments in Interchange Fees in the United States and Abroad".
  • The press continued to report about merchant frustrations with interchange fees and efforts in Congress to have them reduced. (See more Interchange Fee news.)
• Legal and Regulatory News
  
  • Amazon.com sued New York State over its new law that forces online retailers to collect sales tax on shipments to state residents.
  • Senator Chris Dodd introduced legislation in the US Senate to improve credit card billing, marketing, and disclosure practices.
  • The Federal Reserve Board, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration proposed new rules to protect consumers from various credit card issuer practices. The rules also address bank fees on overdrafts on checking accounts. The American Bankers Association doesn't like them. Consumer groups and others generally approved of them. The New York Times, in an editorial today, called them a modest step forward. The Fed has opened a 75-day comment period for reactions to the proposed rules and we provided a how to comment guide.
• Mobile Payments News
  
  • PayPal provided more information about its work with Sprint Nextel to provide a mobile payments application. (See more PayPal Mobile and Mobile Payments news.)
  • Obopay announced Gregory Holmes as its new President, US. (See more Obopay and Mobile Payments news.)
  • BayPay, a group of payments professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area, held its latest meeting focusing on "From Mobile Banking to Mobile Payments."
• Online Banking News
  • Washington Mutual announced a new paperless checking account opening process that doesn't even require a signature card (it uses the signature on the first check for the signature card). (See more online banking and Washington Mutual news.)
• PCI Compliance News
  • David Navetta, a lawyer with InfoSecCompliance, published an article titled "The Legal Implications of the PCI Data Security Standard". (See more PCI Compliance news.)
  • Hannaford, a PCI compliant supermarket chain that is one of the most recent victims of a card data breach, said it is spending millions to prevent future data thefts.
• Open Job Listings on PaymentsJobs.com
  
  • Sales Executive at Online Resources (Atlanta, GA)
  • Account Relationship Manager at Skylight Financial (Atlanta, GA)
  • Product Manager at Skylight Financial (Atlanta, GA)
  • Director, Public Relations at Chase Paymentech (Dallas, TX)
  • Retail Product Manager at PreCash, Inc. (Portland, OR)
  • Project Manager at FSV Payment Systems (Jacksonville, FL)
  • Post your current job openings on PaymentsJobs.com!
• Upcoming Glenbrook Payments Education Offerings
  
  • Roundtable on Emerging Payments: Cross-Border eCommerce: Pot of Gold and Rainbow of Fraud - San Francisco Bay Area - May 7
  • Workshop on The Structure of the Merchant Payments Marketplace - San Francisco Bay Area - June 10
  • Next Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp - San Francisco Bay Area - June 11-12

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!

Jessie Mangaliman and Mark Gomez write for the San Jose Mercury News about recent incidents of debit card skimming in Silicon Valley resulting in counterfeit cards being used to attack ATMs and get cash. "It's unclear how, but police said the thieves may have swapped a debit-card-reading machine at one or more of the store's checkout stands, or installed small, easily hidden skimming devices that collect a shopper's card number and personal identification codes"

Earlier today, the Federal Reserve proposed new rules to prohibit unfair practices regarding credit cards and overdraft services. that would, among other provisions, protect consumers from unexpected increases in the rate charged on pre-existing credit card balances.

In addition, the proposed rules addresses practices in connection with a bank’s payment of overdrafts on a deposit account, whether the overdraft is created by check, a withdrawal at an ATM, a debit card purchase, or other transactions. The proposed rules require institutions to provide consumers with notice and an opportunity to opt out of the payment of overdrafts, before any overdraft fees or charges may be imposed on consumers' accounts.

The Fed has been joined in putting forth these proposed changes by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration.

The Fed has provided a seventy-five day comment period - to approximately mid-July. Providing your comments to the Fed is easy:

• On the Fed's web site (scroll down to the bottom of the page to Regulation AA - click on submit comment)
• By email to: regs.comments@federalreserve.gov
• By fax to (202) 452-3819 or (202) 452-3102
• By regular mail to:

  Jennifer J. Johnson
Secretary, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
20th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20551

Be sure to reference Docket No. R-1314 in your written comments.

All comments will be public and can be viewed online on the Fed's web site. Pro or con - this is an important payment card industry issue worth your comments.

In an article titled 'The Tangled Web of PCI Compliance', Richard Adhikari writes for InternetNews.com - 'The best protection is to have an end-to-end solution combining source code reviews, vulnerability scans and Web application firewalls.'

In an article titled 'Crooks Have Your Card and You Don't Even Know It', Elisabeth Leamy reports for ABC News on credit and debit card cloning. She writes: "It's a bonanza for crooks. They used to have to risk going into stores to buy pricey merchandise, which they then sold for cash. Now they can just drain ATMs. Authorities say specialized crews do nothing but hit ATMs, cashing out on behalf of other identity thieves and taking a commission."

Menekse Gencer of PayPal blogs on the PayPal Blog about PayPal's mobile money transfer application now available on Sprint phones.

Adam Levitin writes on the Credit Slips blog about his take on the proposed Fed/OTS/NCUA Credit Card Regulations. "Some of the proposed rules are quite favorable for consumer interests. Others do not go far enough, however, and perhaps most importantly, there are several major issues that the proposed rules simply do not address."

Celent has published a new report titled 'The Would-Be Disruptors: New Technologies in the Remittance Space' that 'examines the application of technology that holds the promise of making cross-border remittances less expensive, quicker, more convenient, and more secure than traditional low-tech remittance models.'   » Continue Reading

Edward L. Yingling, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, issued a press release today discussing the Federal Reserve's proposed rules regarding credit card practices and overdraft fees saying: “The Federal Reserve’s proposal is an unprecedented regulatory intrusion into marketplace pricing and product offerings. We are deeply concerned that these rules will result in less competition, higher consumer prices, fewer consumer choices and reduced consumer access to credit cards. In short, everyday consumers will bear the real cost of these proposals.   » Continue Reading

The Federal Reserve Board has announced proposed new rules to 'prohibit unfair practices regarding credit cards and overdraft services that would, among other provisions, protect consumers from unexpected increases in the rate charged on pre-existing credit card balances.' The Fed is acting in concert with the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration in pursuing these new rules.

"The proposed rules are intended to establish a new baseline for fairness in how credit card plans operate," said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. "Consumers relying on credit cards should be better able to predict how their decisions and actions will affect their costs."   » Continue Reading

David Navetta, a lawyer with InfoSecCompliance, writes for SC Magazine about the legal implications of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), saying it 'now presents serious legal challenges and risk for retailers.'

Unisys has published an insights paper titled Big Winners and Big Losers in Payments - – Where Is Your Bank Headed? . "In 2008 banks need to face the new challenges head on to become payments winners in 2010. It is time for banks to modernize their internal infrastructure to work FOR them instead of AGAINST them, enabling them to quickly develop new, competitive services. They should prepare themselves for a complex exercise that will likely take them several years to complete. Banks need to act now in order to survive and prosper to become big winners in tomorrow’s payments business."

Visa Inc. has announced its first corporate responsibility program at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) mid-year meeting, where Visa was recognized as the first CGI "commitment to action" of 2008.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced that in Canada it has increased its purchase threshold limit for PayPass Tap & Go purchases to $50 across all retail categories, including quick serve restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, movie theatres and convenience stores.   » Continue Reading

Saul Hansell reports for the New York Times that Amazon.com has 'filed a lawsuit challenging New York State’s new law forcing online retailers to collect sales tax on shipments to state residents.' Apparently the law is known anecdotally in the state as the "Amazon tax".

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board has announced it has approved a joint proposed rule prohibiting credit card and overdraft service practices as unfair or deceptive under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

In a Payment Systems Research Briefing titled Developments in Interchange Fees in the United States and Abroad , Terri Bradford and Fumiko Hayashi of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City provide an update on developments in interchange fees in the United States and recent public authority involvement in interchange fees abroad. They write: "While regulation of interchange fees is still just a point of discussion in the United States, regulation abroad is a reality. In about 20 countries, public authorities have taken actions that limit the level of interchange fees or merchant discount fees."

• India Times: How to stop mobile banking fraud
• NY Times: U.S. Seeks New Curbs on Credit-Card Practices
• Customers receive 10% discount and flexibility when they cash stimulus checks at Safeway
• AuctionBytes: eBay Canada Lowers PayPal Fees
• CORESense Teams With Merchant E-Solutions to Launch First and Only Direct to Market Retailing Solution Saving Money and Time for Wineries
• ABC News: How Identity Theft Happens and How to Protect Yourself

Asiana Airlines, Bank of America, and American Express have announced the launch of the new Asiana American Express Card from Bank of America. The card provides two miles per dollar on everyday purchases and access to members-only golf courses in Korea and throughout the Asia Pacific region.   » Continue Reading

The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) has announced it has approved a proposal to prohibit savings associations from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices regarding credit cards and overdraft services that violate the Federal Trade Commission Act. The Federal Reserve Board and the National Credit Union Administration are expected to also approve the proposal shortly.

According to the OTS, the joint proposal addresses practices that have raised concern about fairness and transparency. For credit cards, the proposed rule would address: (1) unfair time periods for making payments; (2) unfair payment allocations; (3) unfair interest rate increases on outstanding balances; (4) unfair fees from credit holds; (5) unfair methods of computing balances; (6) unfair security deposits and fees charged to an account for the issuance of credit; and (7) deceptive offers of credit. For overdraft protection services on deposit accounts, the proposed rule would address: (1) a consumer’s ability to opt out of overdraft services; and (2) unfair fees for debit holds. A summary of the proposed rules is available online.   » Continue Reading

Tony Adams reports for the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer about yesterday's first ever annual meeting for TSYS as an independent company. 'Tomlinson [TSYS CEO] said his company will soon introduce a single card that lets consumers choose between a debit or credit transaction at the point of sale.' A webcast of the annual meeting is available at the TSYS web site.

Global Payments has announced that Pioneer Petroleums, one of Ontario's largest independent gasoline retailers, is now accepting MasterCard PayPass contactless card acceptance. The service, which allows consumers to pay for goods and services with the simple tap of their payment card, is available at more than 140 Pioneer locations across Ontario.   » Continue Reading

Christina Rexrode writes for the Charlotte Observer about the benefits of remote deposit capture to both businesses and consumers. But she notes that some large banks have no plans for introducing the service for consumers.

A coalition of consumer, labor and civil rights groups yesterday lauded what they called tough new legislation to prohibit abusive and unfair credit card practices, introduced by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd. In a letter of support for the legislation , the groups noted that “as the U.S. economy tightens, financially vulnerable families need the protections of the Credit CARD Act more than ever.”   » Continue Reading

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, yesterday introduced legislation to 'improve credit card billing, marketing, and disclosure practices.' According to Dodd, 'the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (the C.A.R.D. Act) is aimed at stopping credit card practices that drag consumers into staggering amounts of debt, and too often harm, rather than help, the ability of American families to move up the economic ladder.'

Dodd introduced similar legislation in 2005 that died in Committee. This year, Politico.com reports that 'Democrats believe the issue is an election-year winner, offering their candidates a way to get out in front of the current economic turmoil and target an industry reviled by consumers. Both Democratic presidential rivals — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — have plans addressing credit card abuses.'   » Continue Reading

Chase Card Services and the Canadian Cancer Society have announced the launch of the PayPass-enabled Canadian Cancer Society MasterCard from Chase. By using the card for daily purchases, one per cent of customers’ eligible net purchases will be donated directly to the Canadian Cancer Society.   » Continue Reading

In the UK, Barclaycard and InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) have announced the launch of the Priority Club Rewards Visa credit card.   » Continue Reading

Washington Mutual has announced a new account opening experience that it says couples 100% online approval and opening, and eliminates the need to mail a traditional signature card. Rather than the signature card, the new customer 'uses the first check in their checkbook, which has been specially designed so that once written and processed, it is scanned and used to serve as the sample signature for the account.'   » Continue Reading

• Greenhill SAVP Completes Investment in FTRANS, Corp.
• Zopa Reaches Significant Milestones and Drives Positive Results in its First Full Quarter of Operation in U.S.
• Ralphs Gives Customers an Extra $30, $60 or $120 When They Turn Their Tax Refund or Economic Stimulus Checks into Ralphs Gift Cards
• Gilbarco’s FlexPay™ Encrypting PIN Pad Solution Saves Retailers Thousands in PCI Costs
• TheStreet.com: Navigating Cash-Back Deals on Credit Cards
• Forrester: Why US B2C eCommerce Will Weather The Economic Downturn Well
• WSJ - Walt Mossberg: How to Avoid Cons That Can Lead To Identity Theft
• Adobe and Industry Leaders Establish Open Screen Project

The list of other payments and banking-related blogs we started last week has just about doubled in size over the last couple of days! We've now got over 25 blogs listed - along with widgets displaying the latest RSS feeds from each blog. You can quickly scan the page for stories that might be of interest and then click through to read the full text of each story. Clicking on the blog's name takes you to that blog's home page. Hope you find this useful and that it's helpful introducing you to some new sources of payments insights!

James Gardner blogs on Bankervision about what he heard at a conference yesterday - 'the mobile phone will become a personal server in the immediate future.'

Anita Boomstein, an attorney with Hughes Hubbard & Reed, has published a paper titled 'Identity Theft Prevention Programs: Will Your Company Need to Have One?' . Her paper reminds companies of their obligations under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) to take steps to 'prevent, detect and mitigate the occurences of identity theft.' Compliance becomes mandatory on November 1, 2008.

Unified Network Payment Solutions® (UNPS), a subsidiary of First Data Corp., has announced that it has been certified by MasterCard and Visa to provide chip technology solutions to Canadian merchants. With this certification, UNPS merchants will be able to accept chip cards at the point of sale.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Tracking Your Money Without Paying a Mint', Katherine Boehret writes for the Wall Street Journal about Mint.com, one of the companies presenting at yesterday's Finovate Startup conference in San Francisco. She says 'Mint was created for 20-somethings like me who want to pay more attention to their finances but aren't interested in taking hours each week to do so. This Web site worked ideally for me, and its clean interface integrates Web 2.0 features in a way that makes it a pleasure to use.'

Aite Group has published a new report titled 'Fraud Management Strategies of U.S. Financial Institutions: The Drive Toward Enterprise-Wide'. A new report from Aite Group, LLC examines the fraud management strategy of U.S. financial institutions today, and how it is expected to evolve over the next three years. Based on Aite Group's survey of 13 U.S. banks and credit unions conducted between January and March 2008, the report provides a measurement of fraud components and evaluates fraud management system requirements.   » Continue Reading

Lisa Lerer writes for Politico.com writes about merchant frustrations with increasing payment card interchange fees - and legislation introduced in the US Congress to try to deal with interchange fees. She writes: 'The fight is over interchange fees, a relatively obscure business-to-business charge brought into the spotlight by a two-year lobbying campaign. And it’s an issue the retailers hope will dovetail with renewed congressional scrutiny of other credit card practices involving hidden charges and excessive fees.'

On the flip side, Jeff Jacoby writes an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe titled 'Leave the Plastic Alone' advocating that no legislation is required to manage interchange fees.

• SecureNet Selects Hypercom's HBNet to Speed Payment Transactions at Pittsburgh International Airport
• AuctionBytes: eBay Changes PayPal Echeck Blocking Policy
• Squirrel One POS System Integrates Merchant Link’s TransactionVault
• Survey Indicates Nearly 59% of Consumers Will Not Change Online Shopping Habits In 2008 According to Safe Home Products
• Bank of America Selects SAP
• Experian Study Shows Severely Delinquent Mortgage Accounts Up 15 Percent in One Year
• Euronet’s Transact Subsidiary Signs Prepaid Agreement With Aral AG, Germany’s Largest Operator of Petrol Stations
• Bloomberg: American Express Investors Lower Hurdle for Sale
• New York Times: Citigroup to Sell $3 Billion in Stock
• WaMu replaces its chief risk officer

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Gregory Holmes has been named President, US at Obopay. Holmes previously worked for First Data Corp. and Visa USA.

eBillme has announced it will host a webinar on Wednesday, May 14, where Russ Jones of Glenbrook Partners will provide an in-depth look at the retailer integration process for several alternative payment options including: Bill Me Later, eBillme, Google Checkout, and PayPal.   » Continue Reading

Phoenix Payments has announced the results of its 2007 Consumer Payments Preferences and Usage Study: Debit Card Opportunities and Challenges. The study findings include a detailed report on debit card issues, covering consumer preferences, attitudes, and usage of debit cards as well as debit’s relationship to other payment methods.   » Continue Reading

A new study of debit cards in the US market commissioned by PULSE identified superior performance by “best-in-class” issuers - 'suggesting significant untapped potential in debit for many financial institutions.'   » Continue Reading

Erin McCune blogs the best of show awards for today's Finovate Startup conference. My notes from the company presentations are available here. It was a great event, extremely fast paced and a lot of fun. Be sure to read Erin's coverage as well.

There's a BayPay meeting for San Francisco Bay Area payments professionals being held tomorrow night, Wednesday, April 30, from 6-9 PM. The topic is "From Mobile Banking to Mobile Payments". If you're already a BayPay member, you should have already received the details on meeting location, etc. If you're not a BayPay member and would like to join, contact me directly and I'll fill you in on the details.

We're live at the wonderful UCSF Conference Center in the Mission Bay of San Francisco - about a minute until the first demo session begins at FinovateStartup. We'll be updating this post with our notes from the demos through the day.   » Continue Reading

CyberSource and China-based PayEase Technology Ltd. have announced a collaboration to facilitate merchants’ entry into the China market. With the PayEase/CyberSource solution, merchants gain support for both Chinese credit cards as well as debit cards from over 20 key banks.   » Continue Reading

Yesterday, Visa Inc. announced its first quarter of financial results since going public. The press release and an accompanying presentation are available online along with a webcast of the conference call held yesterday discussing the results.

CTST 2008, the largest payment, security and identification conference in the Americas, is being held this year May 12th through 15th at the Orange County Convention Center West, in Orlando, Fla. International industry leaders presenting during the Mobile and NFC Track include: 3G Americas, Aite Group, Authentec, Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cassis International, Cellular South, Citibank, FireThorn, First Annapolis Consulting, First Data, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Infineon Technologies, Inside Contactless, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, NXP Semiconductors, Sprint Nextel, StoLPaN, Venyon, ViVOtech and Vodafone.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2008. Net revenue for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.2 billion, a 29% increase versus the same period in 2007 with currency fluctuations (driven by movement of the euro and the Brazilian real relative to the U.S. dollar) contributing 5.1% of the increase in net revenue for the quarter MasterCard's gross dollar volume increased 14.1%, on a local currency basis, to $611 billion.

Keith Regan looks at Bill Me Later in a post on eCommerceTimes.com saying that "credit card-free alternative Bill Me Later has proven that merchants and consumers alike are hungry for alternatives."

Damian Paletta writes for the Wall St. Journal that "the Federal Reserve and two other regulators [OTS and NCUA] plan to propose strict policies on credit-card issuers after criticism that card companies charge too many hidden fees and unfairly raise interest rates on borrowers." He says the plan is expected to be introduced by the Fed at a meeting this Friday.

• CyberSource Announces First Quarter 2008 Financial Results
• Economic Times (India): RBI is looking at extending mobile-banking services to the alerge population
• SimpleTuition Adds Discover Student Loans
• BankServ Completes Mandatory FedLine Conversions Eight Months Prior to Federal Reserve Deadline
• Integrated Bank Technology and Recovery Solutions Partner to Assist Banks in Compliance Plans with New Federal Regulatory Standards
• Charlotte Observer: Charlotte IBM exec plugs into the bank biz
• 3i Infotech to buy Regulus Group for $80 mln
• Beyond Phishing - Cronto Helps De-Mystify the Growing Threat of Internet Banking Fraud with New Report
• Los Angeles Times: Fed criticized at hearing on Bank of America takeover of Countrywide

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Joseph Saunders has been named Vice President, Business Development, at Digital Resolve. Previously, Saunders was responsible for new market development at TARGUSinfo.

Karen Webster writes for the Catalyst Code blog about her view of mobile payments - which could be summarized as something like "too much buzz, not enough tough-minded thinking." She suspects industry analysts are just being too optimistic.

Instead, Webster argues: "Getting merchants and customers to adopt something new when, by and large, their experience today at the physical point of sale is pretty darn good, takes a whole lot more than just saying it is so or having technology that can enable neat new things."

Yesterday, we mentioned we were building a new page on Payments News with RSS feeds from payments and banking-related blogs. We had a number of responses from bloggers today and have updated the page to reflect those responses.

Are there any more blogs we should add - please let us know!

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency late last week issued new risk management guidance to banks on the subject of payment processors. The OCC said that 'certain merchants, such as telemarketers, pose a higher risk than other merchants and require additional due diligence and close monitoring.'   » Continue Reading

Visa Inc. has reported financial results for its second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2008. Net operating revenue was $1.5 billion with Visa's payments volume growing 19% year over year to $681 billion.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced that Journeys.com, a specialty retailer of footwear and accessories, has launched Bill Me Later on its web site. With the Bill Me Later payment service, consumers can conveniently and securely make online purchases without a credit card. Journeys.com is also extending the additional convenience and flexibility of no payments for 90 days to its customers.   » Continue Reading

In his article titled 'Mobiles begin calling the shots on banking and payments', Trevor Lloyd-Jones writes for Business Intelligence Middle East about mobile payments efforts in many countries around the world and interviews Mi-Pay's CTO Simon Cavil. 'The use of mobiles for banking and payments is transforming lives and economies, especially in the unbanked and rural areas of many countries without branches and other traditional banking channels, such as ATMs, fixed line telephones and the Internet.' Some fascinating reading! Dave Birch did a podcast interview with Simon Cavil a year ago.

First Data Corp. has announced an agreement to acquire InComm, a marketer, distributor and technology innovator of stored value gift and prepaid products. Specific terms and conditions of the agreement were not disclosed, but the transaction is expected to be accretive to First Data. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness will be attending tomorrow's FinovateStartup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene has pulled together an excellent program where forty financial services startups will "strut their stuff." Christophe Langlois from Visible Banking will be live blogging the event on Jim's NetBanker site. If you're also going to be there, let's get acquainted! We'll be blogging to Payments News as time permits and also commenting from @paymentsnews on Twitter.

Fair Isaac has announced the release of TRIAD adaptive control system version 8.3 providing credit grantors with access to 'improved flexibility and processing capabilities that accelerate the development and implementation of profitable decisions in account and customer management, at both the enterprise and portfolio levels.' Fair Isaac says that 65% of bankcards globally are processed on a Fair Isaac adaptive control system.   » Continue Reading

The International Payments Framework Group (IPF) has announced its decision to go forward with the next phase of the project. According to IPF, 'Phase II will improve the cross-border payments process through operating rules that will enable interoperability between domestic and international ACH systems.'   » Continue Reading

Aite Group has published a new report titled 'Usage Trends in Online and Mobile Banking: Upping the Ante' finding that reviews consumer adoption trends for online and mobile banking services over the next two years.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard will be announcing financial results for the first quarter 2008 tomorrow morning before the markets open. A webcast to discuss the results is scheduled for Tuesday morning, April 29, beginning at 9 AM Easter.

Visa Inc. will be announcing its financial results for the first quarter 2008 later today after the markets close. A conference call has been scheduled for 2 PM Eastern to discuss the results and will be available via webcast.

APACS has confirmed plans for the launch of the new Faster Payments Service on May 27th. Beginning then, the FPS founding banks will be gradually implementing their own plans to deliver the new service to their customers. According to APACS, 'the new service will benefit customers by speeding up one-off payments made over the internet or by phone, reducing the current three-day clearing timescale to enable these payments to clear within hours, not days. For the very first time it will also be possible to make these payments all day every day.'   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Paying breach bill may not buy Hannaford full data protection', Jaikumar Vijayan writes for Computerworld about Hannaford's discussion last week that it is spending millions of dollars on new IT security tools. The grocer last week said it has plans to encrypt all payment card data on its internal network.

A friend of ours over the weekend wondered what the total cost to the industry of PCI compliance will be. Seems like somewhere between $100 million and $1 billion? What do you think? Comments?

• ArkansasBusiness.com: Technologies Differ For Mobile Banking Services
• Netcordia Solves Key PCI Compliance Vulnerability: the Configuration of Information Networks
• mChek on Android : Safe, Smart and Simple payment Solution
• Guardian: London Times offers prepay card
• PaySimple: Payment Processing Leader Helps Florist Collect Payments Quickly
• Bank Systems & Technology: Analytics Are Becoming Increasingly Important Tools in Banks’ Customer Retention Strategies
• New York Times DealBook: For Bank Bosses, a Week on the Hotseat
• Iowa Banking Law Blog: UK Rules that Overdraft Fees Can be Judged for Fairness
• SaaS Leaders, CORESense and SPS Commerce, Partner to Offer Integrated Supply Chain Solution for Mid-Market Retailers
• Reuters: India's Essar buys stake in mobile payment provider

Tell us about it! We're building a one page listing of updated content from other payments and banking-related blogs that we find worth a regular daily read. If you've got a payments or banking-related blog and think your blog should be listed, please send us your information via the link included on that page!

in an article about merchant-centric loyalty programs, Kelli B. Grant writes for the Wall St. Journal about how 'retailers are hoping to get customers back into their stores is by offering all sorts of new rewards programs and in-store bonuses to their most loyal customers.'

The Sunday Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune has an article titled "Pay by Touch's backers claim fingers burned" by reporter Matt McKinney that takes a look back at Pay By Touch. On March 19, 2008, Pay By Touch shuttered its biometric-based payment service.