In an article titled "Citigroup Takes First Step Toward Breakup", David Enrich reports for the Wall St. Journal about changes coming for Citigroup - including the retirement of Robert E. Rubin and rumors of a pending spin-off of its brokerage unit.

I just tweaked the stylesheet settings for Payments News so that it now displays much more nicely on the Apple iPhone. If you're an iPhone user and have any feedback for us, please click on the Feedback link in the menu bar below the banner above and send your feedback along to us!

Hope you have a great weekend! For a change, it's going to be warmer and sunny here in the San Francisco Bay Area - yes!

Stuart Weiner of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has published an article titled "The Federal Reserve’s Role in Retail Payments: Adapting to a New Environment" in the bank's fourth quarter Economic Review publication.

The U.S. retail payments system is in the midst of a transformation. The shift from paper to electronics, the emergence of new instruments and payments channels, the rise in nonbank participation, the change in risk profiles—all are elements of this new landscape. The Federal Reserve takes as one of its mandates fostering a payments system that is safe, efficient, and accessible. How does the Federal Reserve fulfill this mandate in this new environment?

This morning's jobs report from the US Department of Labor reports a loss of 524,000 nonfarm jobs during December resulting in an unemployment rate of 7.2%, the highest it has been since 1993, and up from 6.8% in November.

• Digital Money Forum: Paying for innovation
• Credit Slips: Cramdown Commentary
• Heartland Payment Systems and transmodus Launch Check Management System Utilizing Service-Oriented Architecture
• Mocapay to Showcase Mobile Payments With VeriFone MX800 Series at 2009 National Retail Federation Annual Convention
• American Banker: A Mobile Plan B: Bypass Carriers by Using Bluetooth
• Two-factor authentication comes to iPhone