In an article titled "Banga to Be MasterCard's Protector", Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal's weekend edition about MasterCard's 50-year old Ajay Banga - currently president and COO and soon to be CEO as of July 1st. Sidel writes about the more open style of Banga as compared to current CEO Robert Selander and she credits Banga with the recent formation of MasterCard Labs - which recently announced a plan to open up MasterCard's platform with a series of APIs.

Palo Alto-based Think Computer Corporation has announced the launch of its new FaceCash mobile payment system that lets consumers pay for items at the point of sale with a cell phone. Think says that FaceCash is the first component of its ThinkLink integrated payment and accounting network to launch.

According to Think, "FaceCash uses simple barcode technology to facilitate quick and easy payment transactions in restaurants, clothing stores, and other retail shops. The system offers several advantages over traditional plastic cards for both buyers and sellers. With the ability to record multiple account numbers directly within the FaceCash application, buyers benefit from the convenience of carrying less plastic. Buyers also have access to an unprecedented level of detail about their purchases thanks to the electronic receipts that are automatically generated each time a FaceCash transaction takes place." READ MORE »

The Secure POS Vendor Alliance (SPVA), a non-profit business organization founded by Hypercom, Ingenico and VeriFone has announced the release of its End-to-End Encryption Security Requirements related to payment card data in payment card reading devices. The paper is targeted to vendors of POS devices and is intended to help create "widespread understanding of payment security issues and the adoption of best practices." READ MORE »

The UK Cards Association and ABTA, the travel association, have published a new consumer advice guide – Using your card overseas – that provides the latest tips and useful information for travelers who are planning to use their cards abroad this summer. READ MORE »

AccountNow has introduced a new gold card product with features and services usually found only through traditional banking relationships. The AccountNow Gold Visa Prepaid Card lets cardholders borrow money and build credit history. In addition, AccountNow Gold cardholders who enroll in Direct Deposit receive higher limits on all deposits and withdrawals. "Gold Card customers also receive VIP customer service, free online bill pay, and the power, prestige and convenience that come with carrying a Gold Visa Prepaid Card. And, there's no monthly fee when $3,000 or more in deposits is placed on a card during a month." READ MORE »

Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners and our Payments Education series.

• Fidelity Investments: Make Good Choices about Credit Cards
• The Guardian: Credit card spending soars all over Europe
• Reuters: EU to market test Visa Europe's debit fee cut offer
• Digital Transactions: Visa Eases up on Triple DES Deadline in Face of ‘Migration Challenges’
• Marketplace: Gap app taps into mobile marketing (iPad)
• New Mercator Advisory Group Report: Top Tier Merchants and the Challenge of Card Data Security
• New Mercator Advisory Group Report: Understanding Restricted Authorization Networks:Cards Between Closed and Open Loop
• C$ cMoney Appoints William Watson as COO
• Prepaid Card Industry Innovator (Colin Greaves) Becomes CEO for Transact Network Limited

Earlier today, Senator Dick Durbin sent a letter to the CEOs of MasterCard and Visa telling them "to stop threatening small banks with interchange fee changes and to commit not to take any steps that would purposefully disadvantage small card issuers."

First Data Corp. has published a new white paper titled "Where Security Fits in the Payment Processing Chain" that provides an overview of security vulnerabilities and identifies cost-effective technology-based solutions that are readily available today to help merchants security sensitive data and improve their PCI compliance.

BOKU has announced that it has secured funding from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Silicon Valley technology veterans Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, founders of the firm, will also advise BOKU on strategic matters, industry insight and tactical direction.

“Andreessen Horowitz looks to help talented entrepreneurs build great companies around great technologies, and we did an extensive review of the mobile payments space and the players before deciding to work with BOKU,” said Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “We feel that BOKU’s management team along with the company’s market-leading merchant relationships, global coverage, and technology will be a powerful combination as they continue their aggressive growth plans in a rapidly changing space.” READ MORE »

Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners and our Payments Education series.

• Credit Slips: The Database You've Been Waiting For
• VentureBeat: Sean Parker predicts Facebook Credits to make up a third of its income in the next year
• Global Payments Completes Sale of its Money Transfer Businesses
• Fifth Third Bank Signs Referral Agreement with Open Solutions Inc. to Fifth Third Network Product
• Western Union Announces Organizational Changes to Improve Efficiency and Drive Long-Term Growth
• CSP Daily News: Credit-Card Bill Becomes Law in Green Mountain State
• San Jose Mercury News: Opinion: Debit card policies hurt both consumers and retailers
• Seeking Alpha: VeriFone Systems, Inc F2Q10 (Qtr End 04/30/2010) Earnings Call Transcript
• As a Special Thanks to Our Troops, Discover® Offers Double Cashback Bonus® or Miles for Military Members and Their Families
• Cintas Enables Companies to Comply with the New FTC Red Flags Rule

A new opportunity has just been posted to PaymentsJobs.com:

• Sr. Product Manager - Credit Card Merchant Processing - Online Resources, Princeton, NJ

Are you looking for payments professionals to add to your team? Post your openings on PaymentsJobs.com and reach an engaged group of payments pros!

Visa and Monitise have announced the formation of a joint venture to provide a technology platform for financial institutions and mobile network operators in India to offer a range of mobile financial services to consumers. The companies said that "the new company will combine Visa’s expertise in enabling secure, globally interoperable financial transactions with Monitise’s know-how in developing mobile financial technology for a broad range of handsets." READ MORE »

Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners and our Payments Education series.

• StorefrontBacktalk: Wal-Mart And Chip-And-PIN: Where’s the Business Case?
• CardRatings.com: 6 Essential iPhone Apps for Credit Card Holders • CardRatings Blog
• Econsultancy: Square's proposition for small businesses: Analytics
• Digital Transactions: With New Cash in Hand, Payvment Plots Post-Facebook Expansion
• Cardlytics Adds Jason Brooks as Senior Vice President of Business Development
• UK: Celebrating a true revolution: Faster Payments Service now 2 years old
• The Press Association: Britons 'fear card fraud abroad'
• TechCrunch: PayPal Goes On The Defensive After MasterCard Opens Platform To Developers
• TechCrunch: Video: Jack Dorsey Shakes Down Arrington, Calacanis, And Google In Seconds
• PhoneFactor and Fiserv Partner for Phone-Based Multi-Factor Authentication
• IDT to Distribute RegaloCard’s Mobile Money Transfer Service to Over 150,000 Retailers Nationwide
• TSYS Healthcare Announces Integration with Lighthouse1 OnDemand
• NYTimes.com: Futuristic Vending Machines That Don’t Nickel and Dime You
• Offerpal Media, the Leader in Virtual Currency Payment Alternatives, Selects ThreatMetrix to Control Fraud
• Mike Konczal - Washington Post: Large banking interests create a Web page against interchange finreg - See: Consumers Against Retail Discrimination website
• Inc.: Making the Move to Mobile Payments
• BusinessWeek: MasterCard opens payment apps to global developers

Several new positions for payments professionals have recently been listed on PaymentsJobs.com:

• Product Manager, International Billing - Linden Lab
• Senior Industry Analyst - Card Issuing and Payments - Aite Group
• Leader, Online Channel Payments (Money Movement) - TD Bank
• Project Manager - mFoundry
• Processor Analyst - CyberSource

Are you looking for payments professionals to hire? Post your openings on PaymentsJobs.com and reach an engaged group of payments pros!

Earlier today, MasterCard announced that it was going to open up API's for third–party and independent software developers later this year. This afternoon, PayPal responded in a post titled "PayPal X Developers Driving Innovation" by Damon Hougland, senior director of PayPal X - PayPal's open platform announced last fall.

Hougland concludes: "The wallet is becoming virtual, mobile is becoming the Web and the gap between online and offline will soon no longer exist." Get ready for PayPal's second annual developer conference coming up this October.

Verifi has announced the availability of a new hosted payment page that enables merchants to outsource PCI compliance and fraud prevention. Verifi says its hosted payment page "provides retailers with complete flexibility to customize their checkout page for a seamless, branded customer experience, along with tools to optimize sales conversions." READ MORE »

CashEdge has announced that Bank of the West has launched Popmoney™, CashEdge’s person-to-person (P2P) payments service. CashEdge says that "Popmoney is the first payments service to allow bank customers the ability to send money from their bank account, using a recipient’s email address, mobile phone number or bank account information. Popmoney provides support for text messaging, WAP and downloadable mobile applications."

Bank of the West is waiving fees on the Popmoney service until the end of June. After that, fees charged to senders will be $3.00 for "Standard Delivery" (3 business days) and $10.00 for "Next Day Delivery". READ MORE »

Aria Systems has announced Aria SubscriptionsPlus for PayPal, a new subscription management and recurring billing product designed for PayPal's global merchant base. Aria says its "SubscriptionsPlus for PayPal gives merchants robust, SaaS-based subscription billing capabilities, enabling them to develop or expand their recurring revenue streams." READ MORE »

CGAP's Claudia McKay and Mark Pickens have shared a global pricing study they've completed that examines pricing for services targeting unbanked and underbanked poor people in 10 countries. Their conclusion: "mobile banking and other forms of branchless banking are cheaper than traditional banking, but the gap between the two may not be as wide as some may think. On average, branchless banking is 19% cheaper than banks." A PDF of their presentation is available online. See also this article by Jim Rosenberg on the CGAP blog.

Visa and Bancomer Transfer Services, a subsidiary of BBVA Bancomer, have announced the launch of a money transfer service that will provide an additional alternative for consumers that send money from the United States to friends and family living abroad. Consumers will be able to initiate a Visa money transfer transaction at any BTS location in the United States and send funds to select countries including El Salvador, Brazil, China and The Philippines - with future plans to extend the program to support remittances from BTS locations to any country within the Visa network. READ MORE »

Blackhawk Network has announced its fourth annual Hawk Award winners. The awards honor leaders in the prepaid card industry and are awarded in five key areas: Overall Gift Card Program, Card Design, Marketing and Promotion, Industry Achievement, and Product Innovation. READ MORE »

Fiserv has announced the results of its most recent Consumer Billing and Payment Trends survey which has tracked online consumer bill payment habits since 2001. According to the company, "the 2010 survey shows online banking, bill payment and e-bill usage continues to grow, and that the online bill payment population has changed significantly during the last decade. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of households that use online banking increased more than six-fold (to 72.5 million), and the number that use online bill payment increased nearly eight-fold (to 36.4 million). Online bill payers now represent a wide cross-section of the U.S population, and women have edged out men as the primary users of the service." An overview of the 2010 Consumer Billing and Payment Trends survey results can be downloaded at http://www.fiserv.com/trends.htm. READ MORE »

MasterCard has announced that it will release Open Application Programming Interfaces (Open APIs) for third–party and independent software developers later this year. The company says that "by opening up previously proprietary payments and data services, developers will be able to create a new wave of e-commerce and mobile payment applications. A new developer portal will also be launched to enable developers to easily sign up for access to all of the Open APIs that MasterCard makes available will also be launched. The new Open API program is the first initiative from the newly created MasterCard Labs." Interested developers can contact MasterCard at api@mastercard.com to learn more on how to participate in the program. READ MORE »

Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners and our Payments Education series.

• USATODAY.com: Heartland Payment Systems rolls out new card-swipe terminals
• BusinessWeek: Pelosi Urged to Ensure Passage of Debit-Card Limits
• BusinessWeek: First Data Junk Bonds Plunge as CFO Shannon Resigns
• Windstream Communications Teams up With Chase Paymentech to Offer Credit Card Acceptance to Small and Mid-sized Businesses
• Temenos and Capgemini Form Alliance in Financial Services
• ID Analytics Secures Identity-Based Fraud Detection Patent
• Bloomberg.com: First Data Debt Plunges Amid Investor Retreat From Junk Bonds
• Computerworld: As smartcards loom, magnetic cards made safer
• CIBC and TSYS Renew Processing Agreement
• Cubic Awarded $10 Million Services Contract to Operate Washington Metro's SmarTrip Regional Customer Service Center
• KeyBank Enhances, Expands Online and Bank Channel Capabilities - Mobile Banking Launched
• CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Selects Arcot for Online Authentication
• VeriFone Offers Payment Security Monitoring Service to Foil Criminals
• Sun National Bank Goes Mobile With mFoundry
• AuctionBytes: PayPal May Feel Threat as Mastercard Opens Its Platform to Developers
• Manila Bulletin: Globe GCASH takes PayPal as partner
• Vietnam Switch Live on BASE24-eps From ACI Worldwide
• Obopay Names Deepak Chandnani President
• NetBanker: New Online Banking Report Available: Online Personal Financial Management (OFM) 3.0
• First American Creates New Site for Financial Institutions in Response to Merchant Services Growth
• SK C&C Appoints Keith B. Smith, President and COO for SK C&C Mobile Commerce
• SmartMoney.com: 5 Ways to Curb Bank Overdraft Fees
• Ariba Revolutionizes Business Commerce
• Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: MasterCard Wants Programmers to Use Its Payment Technology

The Federal Reserve has announced that consumer credit card agreements from more than 300 credit card issuers are now online in a searchable database it has created. According to the Fed, "the agreements contain general credit terms and conditions along with pricing and fee information. The database will help consumers compare credit card agreements and find a card that best suits their personal finance needs." The database will be updated quarterly. READ MORE »

The Consumer Payments Research Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has released a new public policy discussion paper titled "Mobile Payments in the United States at Retail Point of Sale: Current Market and Future Prospects" authored by Marianne Crowe, Marc Rysman, and Joanna Stavins. From the abstract:

Although mobile payments are increasingly used in some countries, they have not been adopted widely in the United States so far, despite their potential to add value for consumers and streamline the payments system. After describing a few countries’ experiences, we analyze the prospects for the U.S. market for mobile payments in retail payments, particularly the use of contactless and near-field communication technologies. ...

Guardian Analytics has announced closing $9 million in Series C funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures with participation by existing investor Foundation Capital. According to the company, "the Series C funding will be used to accelerate product innovation and capitalize on the growing demand for fraud prevention solutions that can protect financial institutions and their customers from today's sophisticated cybercrime." READ MORE »

Heartland Payment Systems has announced the commercial launch of its new payment card security technology. According to the company, "Heartland has spent more than two years developing and ten months beta testing and iteratively improving this end-to-end encryption technology — called E3™ — that is designed to protect cardholder credit and debit card data, rendering scrambled data useless to cybercriminals." READ MORE »

Prepaid cell phone customers can now use the UPside Visa and iBankUP prepaid card accounts from Plastyc to add airtime minutes to their phones. According to the company, "customers no longer have to buy airtime refill packs and scratch cards at stores or sign up on sites that sell airtime. Instead, they can add minutes to their own phones or their family’s and friend’s phones in the U.S. or overseas right from within their prepaid card account. There are no fees or added costs compared to refill packs, scratch cards or online refills offered by carriers on their own sites." READ MORE »

Headline News is brought to you by Glenbrook Partners and our Payments Education series.

• USATODAY.com: Changes in bank, debit card fees may have limited impact
• NYTimes.com: Credit Card Database Is Comprehensive and Dense
• Global Payments Recognized as Merchant Acquirer of the Year 2010 by Cards International Magazine
• Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ: Maveron Shifts Focus To Cope With A More Frugal Consumer
• Small Businesses Feel Economic Conditions are Improving, According to Capital One Small Business Barometer
• Portals and Rails: Bank revenues and fraud detection: A marriage made in heaven?
• Nokia and Yahoo! to Bring Integrated Web Services to Millions of Consumers around the World
• 7-Eleven® and Zynga® Offer Exclusive FarmVille, Mafia Wars and YoVille Products In-Store and Virtual Gifts In-Game
• IBM Agrees to Acquire Sterling Commerce from AT&T for $1.4 Billion
• NACS Online: ExxonMobil Gets PCI Extension from Visa
• Aditic: Mobile Payments is possible in the University of Denver's Coffee Shop
• Red Gillen - Celent Banking Blog: Thinking Beyond “Dumb Payments”
• Springboard Partners with CARE Program to Warn Teens about Credit Cards
• Washington Business Journal: Retailers beat banks in debit card fee fight
• Rupee Times (India): Mobile banking still not flourishing amongst customers
• CapitalVue News: China UnionPay & China Telecom To Promote 3G Mobile Payment
• Data Center Knowledge: eBay Unveils New Flagship Data Center
• Discover Bank Offers Consumer Savings Products Through New Affinity Partnership with Investor Group
• USA Technologies Expands “JumpStart” Cashless Vending Program
• Full Cycle Leverages the Mocapay Platform to Deliver Complete Mobile Experience
• New Aite Group Report: Bank Satisfaction With Cash Management Technologies