American Express has announced it has agreed to acquire Accertify, a "leading provider of solutions that help merchants combat fraudulent online and other card-not-present transactions."

Accertify offers merchants the option to outsource their end-to-end fraud management process. Many of its customers have quickly achieved significant gains in the efficiency, accuracy and productivity of their fraud prevention efforts with reductions of 50% or more in their fraud losses and customer complaints due to fraud.

Digital River has announced a "comprehensive stand-alone global e-payments solution for online merchants in markets, including e-retail, travel and entertainment, and online services. Designed to increase revenue and customer lifetime value, Digital River World Payments enables online merchants to manage the entire payment lifecycle through a single connection to a payment gateway, merchant account services or fully outsourced payment programs."

More information is available at www.digitalriverpayments.com.

Bankrate has announced key findings from a new study on gift cards. "Bankrate surveyed 54 gift card issuers to determine fees that come from major gift card providers as well as where consumers can get the most value for their money." The full 2010 Gift Card Study is available here.

GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Council, has announced that people in China can now use Alipay, a major Chinese third-party online payment solution, to make purchases from the mba.com store, the official supplier of test-preparation material for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).

TrialPay has announced a redesign of its checkout flow to help its 10,000 online merchants convert more of their free users into paying customers. The company says "the new checkout flow, which features significant UI enhancements and a more streamlined design, is already proving effective: extensive A/B testing showed that the redesign can increase conversions by 10-15% and greatly improves the user experience."

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• Bill.com Integration Enables Sage Peachtree Software Users to Access and Manage Their Payables Anytime and Anywhere
• New Aite Group Report Sizes P2P Payments Market in the US, UK, and Australia

• eMarketer: UK Shoppers Are Global Leaders in Online Spending per Person
• Mobile Manifesto: iPhone 5 NFC Mobile Payment Speculation Reignited by Apple Boku Acquisition Rumors
• ABC News: Debit or Credit Cards? Both Have Advantages

According to a new survey conducted by ControlScan and Merchant Warehouse, Level 4 Merchants (small-to-medium sized businesses) are all over the map on PCI awareness and compliance. 91% of the larger Level 4 merchants (over 50 employees) are familiar with PCI DSS, but only 45% of the smaller merchants (1-10 employees) are familiar. eCommerce merchants were more aware of PCI compliance than their brick-and-mortar retail counterparts (60% versus 37%).

RSA has announced the general availability of the RSA Data Protection Manager, which "combines tokenization and application encryption, two popular application-based controls, with advanced token and key management to deliver end-to-end data security." RSA tokenization technology is currently used with partners like First Data Corporation and VeriFone to secure payment card data.

U.S. Bank, the fifth largest bank in the United States, will soon become the first major bank to implement Secure Vault Payments (SVP). "It gives businesses the only online payment option that provides real-time authorization of funds and guaranteed payments for ACH transactions at costs typically lower than traditional and other alternative payment methods."

"Launching Secure Vault Payments allows U.S. Bank to give our business customers a cost-effective, low risk option to accept online payments, while also offering our consumer banking customers one of the safest ways to pay online," said Jeff Jones, executive vice president for treasury management at U.S. Bank.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• NCR Acquires Mobiqa to Expand Global Mobile Ticketing Platform
• Starbucks Extends Mobile Payment Trial to New York

• New York Times: Do Small Businesses Save Money by Not Taking American Express Cards?
• E-Commerce Times: Clearing Up Some Common E-Commerce Security Misconceptions
• Bank Info Security: An End to Pay-At-The-Pump Skimming?

Aconite has announced the Aconite Smart EMV Manager, an integrated package that delivers "a sophisticated, fully-featured EMV solution in a single product. With straightforward pricing, simple interfaces and a plug-in deployment model, Aconite Smart EMV Manager offers all the benefits of Aconite's world-leading EMV components in a single, easy to implement package."

MasterCard this morning has announced financial results for the third quarter 2010. The company reported gross dollar volume increased 8.5% on a local currency basis to $685 billion, cross border volumes increased 15.4% and processed transactions increased 0.6% compared to the same period in 2009, to 5.8 billion.

"Consumers and businesses around the world continue to recognize the benefits of electronic payments and MasterCard remains at the heart of this evolution," said Ajay Banga, MasterCard president and chief executive officer. "Our year-to-date net income is up over 22%, aided by strong volume growth from markets outside of the U.S."

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• Vindicia Secures $20 Million in Series E Financing
• iPhone Credit Card Swiper Adds Retail Transaction Support to Swipe Credit Card Terminal
• Square Enix Selects PlaySpan's UltimatePay for Payment Processing Services
• TransCard Announces a Turnkey Bank and Prepaid Processing Solution for Members of the Prepaid Community
• European Specialists Team Up to Define Security Standards for Next-Generation Mobile Devices

• TechCrunch: Amazon Now Allows You To Send Gift Cards To Friends On Facebook

Dublin, Ireland - "Payments in a Mobile World" (New Workshop!)
November 17th & 18th - Registration Euro 1195

Santa Clara, California - "Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp"
December 8th & 9th - Registration $1995

Glenbrook Payments Essentials Webinars - Registration $149

This week - "Essentials of eCommerce Payments"
Tuesday November 2nd, 10:30AM- 11:30AM PST

Next week - "ACH Essentials"
Tuesday November 9th, 10:30AM- 11:30AM PST

In 2 weeks - "The Job of the eCommerce Payments Manager"
Tuesday, November 16th, 10:30AM- 11:30AM PST

In 3 weeks - "The PayPal X Platform"
Tuesday, November 23rd, 10:30AM- 11:30AM PST

The European Payments Council (EPC) has announced updated and enhanced versions of the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Scheme Rulebook and the SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) Scheme Rulebooks. November 1, 2010 marks an important target date for SEPA, as all banks in the euro area are now reachable for cross-border SEPA direct debits. READ MORE »

peerTransfer has announced that it has secured financing led by Spark Capital and well-known angels including Dave McClure (500 Startups and formerly of PayPal), John Landry (former CTO of Lotus) and Jim Hornthal (co-founder of Travelocity). "Founded at MIT, peerTransfer enables individuals and businesses to transfer money between international bank accounts more conveniently and up to five times lower cost, compared to traditional banking and wire services."

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has announced that the expanded capabilities for Paymode-X, the all-digital online payment and invoicing system powered by Bottomline Technologies, are now part of the bank’s supply chain and treasury solutions offering.

Combining electronic purchase order submission, invoicing and payment settlement on a single platform, Paymode-X enables companies to better control and predict their cash flow, reduce processing costs and strengthen relationships with suppliers. New features include enhanced purchase order presentment and matching, more efficient invoice workflow and approval capabilities, along with the ability for buyers and their suppliers to negotiate discounts for prompt payment.

VeriFone has announced its PAYware Merchant managed service is now available across Europe. The recently announced strategic partnership with Gemalto "completes VeriFone’s pan-European sales and distribution network and makes a continental payment gateway service feasible." PAYware Merchant is a bank-certified, hosted payment solution for large retailers, fuel organizations and hospitality companies.

Glenbrook's Erin McCune is just back from Sibos 2010 conference, the annual international banking conference sponsored by SWIFT, and has posted her thoughts and observations on the state of the banking industry on our sister website, Payments Views.

Erin gave a well-received talk on The Future of Business Payments.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• New Celent Report Compares Mobile Retail Banking Solutions
• New Global Industry Analysts Report on Worldwide Debit Card Use
• Western Union Rebrands International Business Payments Service
• eGistics Extends Leadership in ACH Dispute Management with Release of Product Enhancements
• SteelSeries Partners with PayNearMe to Offer Flexible Cash Payment Choice to Gaming Customers
• ItzCash Card Emerges as Leading Payment Method Indian Rail E-tickets

• Portals and Rails: Beware of Cybercrashers to Your Social Network Party
• ABA Banking Journal: Millennial’s Priorities - Mobile and Paperless
• Huffington Post: Aaron Greenspan - The End of The Banking Era
• NRF Blog: Swipe fee debate ‘reaching a crescendo’