Blackhawk Network today announced a new Reloadit Pack that gives prepaid card consumers "a safe and easy alternative to using cash to reload and transfer funds onto Blackhawk Network and third party partners' prepaid debit cards." From the www.reloadit.com website or companion IVR consumers simply provide the prepaid card account number and Reloadit Pack scratch off number to transfer the purchased load amount to the prepaid card.

A new survey commissioned by the ABA shows 46% of bank customers report they did - or will - opt in to their bank's overdraft program, saying they are willing to pay a fee for the service to ensure that debit card transactions will be approved even if their account is overdrawn. Prior to the new federal regulations (effective 8/15/2010) no permission was required to provide and charge customers for overdrafts.

Inc. Magazine is out with its annual list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S. In the world of ISOs, Century Payments is ranked #11 (and they are delighted) with 10471% growth over the last three years. Central Payment, Electronic Data Payment systems, Electronic Payments, Gravity Payments, Nationwide Payment Solutions, Payment Alliance International, Payment PRocessing, PaymentMax, and United Payment Services also make the list.

It's also fun to finally see some revenue numbers of otherwise private companies. PlaySpan is ranked #752 (with $11.1M in 2009 revenue) and Vindicia (who is also delighted) is ranked #1,068 (with $4.4M in 2009 revenue). Let us know if you spot any other interesting payments companies.

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• Merchant Advisory Group (MAG) 2010 Annual Conference Registration is Open
• BillMyParents Named Official Currency Partner of Street League Skateboarding
• Southwest Airlines to Provide Bill Payment Services for Their Employees
• Zuora Announces Z-Commerce for the Cloud - VMware Edition
• Visa Data Shows 20% Increase in Inbound US Tourism Spending During First Half of 2010
• Sony Style Europe Partners With Accertify for Online Fraud Protection
• ThreatMetrix Opens European Data Center to Support Fraud Solution Demand
• The Age: Can You Get Sick from Dirty Money?

Compete recently released the findings of its quarterly Online Shopper Intelligence Study, revealing that 83% of consumers are shopping online at least weekly. The Q2 report was compiled from a survey of 3,119 online purchasers between May and July 2010. READ MORE »

Atos Origin today announced the acquisition of Venture Infotek, the leading independent player in the Indian payments market. Created in 1991, Venture Infotek operates in merchant acquiring, card processing, loyalty programs, government benefits programs on behalf of the Indian banks and major retailers. Venture Infotek operates in the major cities of India.

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• New Mercator Report on Branch Banking in a Multichannel World
• Fiserv Launches New Revenue Expansion Program for Financial Institutions
• MasterCard and Borderlinx Collaborate to Enhance Global E-Commerce
• CA Technologies Acquires Arcot Systems
• CNET Asia: Smartphones the Wallet of the Future?
• Wall Street Journal: Beware of New Offers for a 'Professional Card'
• Portals and Rails: ACH Fraud - On the Rise, but Under Control
• CreditCardGuide.com: Discover Card Acceptance Hits New Record

Women Networking in Electronic Transactions (W.net) will be holding their 2010 Designer BootCamp, Friday, October 15, 2010 in San Diego, following the Western States Acquirer’s Association’s Annual Meeting. Billed as a leadership and career development summit, the Designer BootCamp will focus on developing the professional skills of women in the electronic payments industry. W.net has chapters established across the country with upcoming events in Northern California and New York.

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• New Mercator Report on Cash-Based Forms of Online Payments
• New York Times: The Credit Card Company Customers Like Best
• Bankrate.com: Getting a Credit Card Under 21
• New York Times: Advice on Using Mag Stripe Cards While Traveling in an EMV World
• Financial Times: Money-Transfer Companies Evolve, as Cross-Border Remittances Rebound

mFoundry today announced that based on its nearly banking 200 customers, the use of its mobile banking platform now exceeds the one-million user mark.

"While there are some reports indicating that mobile banking growth is slowing, our experience is the complete opposite," commented Sievers. "Over the past nine months, we've seen an average of 10 to 15 new customer signings per month across our direct and channel sales efforts. User adoption is also scaling rapidly with average sequential monthly growth of more than 10%, or nearly 300% annual growth."

The STAR Network recently announced STAR CertiFlash, a new PIN debit application that advances POS security using one-time card number technology. The STAR CertiFlash technology is programmed onto a contactless chip embedded within a payment device. For each transaction, the chip encrypts and transmits a card number that is good for only a single use.

Intuit and mophie have announced the availability of an iPhone-based card acceptance solution that combines Intuit’s GoPayment credit card processing app with the mophie marketplace iPhone credit card reader. This integrated solution is now available in Apple Retail Stores and soon on Apple.com.

eBay recently announced that next month they will be expanding their own eBay shopping cart to include support for more gateways, more shipping flexibility, and more sales tax functionality. At the same time, they are also banning third-party shopping carts from their marketplace effective in mid-2011. In related news, Etsy also announced an expanded checkout that better supports sales tax collection in the Etsy marketplace.

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• Digital River Drives Virtual Economies for Global Game Titles
• TrustCommerce Expands ACH Payment Processing Capabilities
• Denver Business Journal: Wells Fargo Nearly Doubles Mexico Cash-Transfer Network
• Zacks Equity Research: Credit Card Rules - Boon or Bane?
• CreditCards.com: What It Cost To Get A Payment Card In The Cardholder's Pocket

Experian has announced a comprehensive offering of products and services to help clients comply with consumer notification requirements related to the new Risk-Based Pricing Rule. This is in response to the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve Board mandates that, effective Jan. 1, 2011, lenders must send consumers a Risk-Based Pricing Notice if the lender does not provide the consumer with the most favorable rate.

iPay88, a large eCommerce platform in Malaysian, and Alipay, China’s leading online payment service, have announced a strategic partnership. Under the agreement, Alipay will be able to provide its users with the ability to purchase goods from more than 2,000 Malaysian merchants who use iPay88, and iPay88 merchants will have access to Alipay’s more than 300 million registered users in China.

Fiserv today announced the launch of Mobile Source Capture, a new remote deposit capture solution that extends the convenience of remote check capture to camera-equipped mobile phones. Mobile Source Capture leverages best of breed Mobile Deposit® technologies from Mitek Systems, Inc.

Average consumer credit card balances in the U.S. are the lowest in eight years, according to TransUnion's quarterly analysis of trends in the credit card industry. The 2Q Credit Card Quarterly Statistics show that the national credit card delinquency rate (the ratio of bankcard borrowers 90 days or more delinquent on one or more of their credit cards) decreased to 0.92% in 2Q2010, down 17.1% over the previous quarter. Year over year, credit card delinquencies fell by 21.3%.

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• Geezeo Signs Suncoast to Use PFM Solution
• New Celent Report on Payments Trends in Singapore
• MasterCard Launches Reserved by MasterCard to Give New Yorkers the Red Carpet Treatment
• Hypercom Rolls out EFTSec 2.0 Point-to-Point Encryption in the United States
• New Mercator Open Loop Prepaid Market Assessment
• Bank Info Security: Mobile Banking Grows Slowly
• Guardian: Border Officials Find £45,000 Hidden in German's Underpants
• Digital Transactions: Touting Cost Savings, NACHA Launches Pilot for Deposited Checks

POSB recently announced that has launched the first card in Singapore to feature both debit and credit functions on a single card. The Multi-tude card is EMV enabled, works at the ATM with a PIN, or can be used on online via NETS. At the point of sale, EMV readers facilitate the selection of credit or debit.

Visa recently announced global industry best practices for payment application vendors, integrators and resellers that implement, install or manage payment-related systems on behalf of merchants. The best practices developed by Visa in collaboration with the SANS Institute are designed to complement the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS).

hyperWALLET recently announced it was expanding its global prepaid card services for businesses, governments and NGOs who need to manage unbanked or temporary beneficiaries programs in multiple currencies and languages. The company is accepting immediate orders for programs requiring USA, Canadian, and Mexican card services, with availability for Asian jurisdictions slated for Q1, 2011.

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• New NetBanker Report on Email Banking
• Mobile Payment Systems Could Leave Consumers at Risk
• Clear2Pay Creates Asia/Pacific Payments Hub For BNP Paribas
• Bank Info Security: An End to 'Empty Envelope' ATM Fraud?
• SFgate.com: Lower Debit Transaction Fees May Impact Visa
• Ecommerce Journal: Games Platform 'Steam' Now Accepts paysafecard as Payment Option
• Digital Money: Prepaid Preconceptions

Blackhawk Network today announced a new brand of prepaid products called PayPower.

PayPower is a suite of prepaid products and services designed to help consumers stay in control of spending with simple and safe solutions that provide value, transparency and budgeting. The suite of products is targeted to consumers looking for alternatives to traditional financial credit, whether for everyday use, travel, online purchases or simply to pay a bill. Consumers can turn their cash into a debit card at thousands of retailers nationwide and easily reload through Blackhawk's vast reload network.

A recent study conducted by Fiserv shows that consumers are very interested in personal financial management (PFM) tools. But, while interest in PFM is high, actual usage remains quite low.

Nearly 40%of the consumers surveyed indicated that PFM tools would be beneficial to managing their finances, yet only 15% of consumers had used a PFM service in the past 90 days. Of the subset of respondents who had used a PFM service in the past 90 days, an overwhelming majority said they did so from online banking sites (68%), more than double the percentage that reported using the top named traditional personal financial management software.

First Data's Public Affairs organization has put together a Special Edition of VantagePoint that nicely summarizes all the recent payments-related regulatory changes in the U.S. There first of the two PDF downloads includes a summary of the recent debit regulation.

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• Bills.com Outlines Six Strategies to Help Consumers Avoid New Credit Card Fees
• TechCrunch: WePay Brings Hassle-Free Group Payments Platform To Facebook
• Wall Street Journal: Many Shops Maintain 'Cash-Only' Policy
• Talking Retail: 'Battle is on' in UK between Cash and Contactless Payments
• Portals and Rails: Impact of Economic Downturn on Insider Bank Fraud (podcast and transcript)
• SFGate: Mobile Payment Initiatives Are Gaining Momentum
• eWeek: Google and Apple Joust for Mobile Payments
• USA Today: Many Shun Bank Accounts But Pay More For Financial Services
• The New York Times: Credit Card Fraud - $9 Here, 20 Cents There
• TechCrunch: Fraudsters Drain PayPal Accounts Through iTunes

Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners:

• TechCrunch: eBay Launches 2% Cashback Program With PayPal
• Digital Transactions: Latest ACH Stats Reflect Consumer Shift to Electronic Bill Pay
• Computer Weekly: How the future of mobile payments is shaping up
• NetBanker: Doxo Looks to Dramatically Improve the Ebilling Experience

According to a new J.D. Power and Associates report, "Overall customer satisfaction with credit cards has rebounded from a three-year low in 2009, but professed loyalty continues to slip as skepticism that card issuers are focused on customers' best interests remains."

"Despite massive efforts by the credit card industry during the past year to educate customers about credit card terms as a part of the CARD Act, customers' grasp of those terms continues to be elusive," said Michael Beird, director of banking services at J.D. Power and Associates.

A recent study sponsored by Sterling Commerce and Demandware found that consumers are increasingly turning to mobile devices to serve their in-store shopping experience, but are concerned about security and ease-of-use.

The independent survey of 3,600 U.S. consumers reveals that 15% of consumers have used their mobile devices to make purchases. While nearly all (96.2%) of consumers surveyed own a mobile phone, just under half owned a smart phone, which are designed to deliver a more optimal shopping experience.