Over on our sister blog, Payments Views, Glenbrook's Erin McCune takes a look at Western Union's Small Business Payment Solution, interviewing Brian Harris, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management. This post, entitled "FX for the Little Guy", is the third in a new series of Glenbrook profiles on major players in electronic B2B payments.

AisleBuyer has announced that it has added card capture technology to its roster of mobile retail solutions.

"Card capture is a natural extension of our mobile self-checkout strategy," said Dan Preston, CTO of AisleBuyer. "By enabling payments through computer vision technology, retailers have an easier way for customers to pay, thus increasing customer satisfaction with the shopping experience."

On the wires:

• Chase Card Services to Issue Chip-and-Signature Cards
• Jimdo (Germany) Expands Internationally With Using Zuora
• New Juniper Research Report on the NFC Retail Payments Market

On the web:

• Rethink Wireless: AT&T Launches White Label M-Commerce Platform for Retailers

American Express and Payfone have announced a strategic alliance to create a new global mobile checkout service.

“This alliance brings together Serve’s unified online, mobile and real-world functionality with Payfone’s advanced mobile authorization and payment services to deliver a seamless payment solution,” said Dan Schulman, Group President, Enterprise Growth, American Express. “The alliance is an important next step for the international roll out of Serve. We look forward to working with Payfone as we evolve the Serve platform to provide the most advanced payment solutions for buyers and sellers, while setting new standards in security, simplicity and reliability.”

Fargo has announced that its piloting a Visa-branded EMV card for international travelers.

“U.S. issuers and merchants rely primarily on magnetic stripe technology,” said Eric Schindewolf, vice president of product development for Wells Fargo Consumer Credit Card. “However, many parts of the world have adopted chip-enabled payment cards as a primary means of authentication, which has been problematic for customers who travel abroad and were unable to use their credit card. By combining traditional magnetic stripe along with the EMV chip technology, we hope our customers will have the convenience to use their credit card no matter where they are in the world.”

Visa has announced the global launch of Visa IntelliLink Compliance Management, a web-based solution offering enhanced control, compliance and cost-savings for businesses using commercial card programs.

Visa IntelliLink Compliance Management converts commercial card transaction data into information that card program managers at government agencies and private sector enterprises can use to minimize and deter commercial card misuse, such as using cards for personal expenses. A complement to the Visa IntelliLink product suite, this new service gives organizations a more detailed view of commercial payment program data, complementing existing card management and issuer reporting systems for a 360 degree view of commercial payment solution activity.

On the wires:

• Striata and Payments Gateway Partner to Securely Deliver Property Tax Bills Electronically
• USA Technologies Transaction Processing Volume Growth Continues

On the web:

• Mobile Money to Deliver on the Promise | Merchant Account Industry & Credit Card Processing Blog
• Credit Slips: How Credit Card Companies Get Around the Card Act

New boot camps, new webinars! Glenbrook’s industry education webinars for April, May and June are now open for registration, as are fall boot camps in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Payments Essentials Webinars - Tuesdays 10:30am - 11:30am PDT, $149

Apr 26, 2011 - Card Acquiring – Vendor Evaluation – A Merchant’s View

May 03, 2011 - Cross Border B2B Payments

May 10, 2011 - Small Business Payments – Best Practices

May 17, 2011 - Prepaid Essentials

May 24, 2011 - Mobile P2P Payments in the U.S.

May 31, 2011 - eCommerce Payments Acceptance – Europe

Jun 07, 2011 - Durbin – Where We Are Now

Jun 14, 2011 - eCommerce Payments Acceptance – Asia

Jun 21, 2011 - Online Wallets, Shopping, and Digital Content

Jun 28, 2011 - Card Essentials

Payments Boot Camps – Two day “deep dive” into the industry, $1995

May 18-19, 2011: Santa Clara, CA - with Scott Loftesness and Carol Coye Benson

Oct 04-05, 2011: Santa Clara, CA - with Scott Loftesness and Carol Coye Benson

Oct 26-27, 2011: New York, NY - with Bryan Derman and Carol Coye Benson

Dec 07-08, 2011: Santa Clara, CA - with Scott Loftesness and Carol Coye Benson

Digital River recently announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued U.S. Patent No. 7,881,972 entitled, Electronic Commerce System and Method for Detecting Fraud.

As part of the dynamic cross-linking data techniques inherent in Transaction Defender, this technology uses transaction information given by customers during the online checkout process to make instantaneous fraud detection decisions. The technology continually scans data points delivered from more than 150,000 Digital River hosted global online stores to reveal new risk patterns and trends in real-time and quickly identify and stop fraud attacks through one central action.

Bango has announced that it has "further expanded its mobile payment platform by adding carrier billing in Canada. This brings the total number of subscribers it reaches through carrier billing in North America to over 200 million. Bango additionally provides mobile credit card and PayPal for payments that cannot be charged to the carrier bill."

On the wires:

• American Express Takes Aim at Identity Thieves with ID Protect Premium
• Hypercom Brings EMV Card Payment to Dubai’s Metro
• Visa Europe’s €100m Investment in Convergence

On the web:

• MSNBC: Study: Banks Hiding Fee Info, Skirting Law
• Digital Transactions: Secure Vault Payments Will Go Mobile Later This Year with Bar Codes
• Business Standard: IndusInd to Buy Deutsche Bank's Credit Card Biz in India
• BayPay Event: Mobile Payment Beyond NFC

Fiserv sponsored a survey of top US banking executives to see where they stand regarding mobile.

Forrester surveyed 15 decision makers in October 2010 from top tier U.S. banks and credit unions to evaluate the current and future state of mobile banking and payments within their organizations. The results indicated that the majority of financial institutions have clear-cut mobile banking strategies. However, when it comes to mobile payments, most see themselves in the role of “fast follower” and are waiting for market changes and movement from “pace setters” before investing heavily.

First Data has released its First Data SpendTrend analysis for the full month of March 2011 compared to March 2010.

Overall year-over-year dollar volume growth increased 8.1% in March, compared to February’s 8.4% growth rate. Excluding sales at gasoline stations, dollar volume growth was 6.9% in March versus 7.7% in February. Gasoline prices in March were up 30% year-over-year, which limited consumer discretionary spending.

On the wires:

• TNS Unveils New TNSPay Capabilities
• Telcel Mexico Selects Vesta Corporation to Launch New Recharge Functionality
• Shift4 Brings a Higher Standard of Payment Processing to Microsoft Dynamics RMS Users

On the web:

• Portals and Rails: Dispelling the Myths about Mobile Banking and Payments
• VentureBeat: Why does NFC matter? Does tap beat swipe for mobile payments?
• Bloomberg: AT&T, Verizon Wireless to Open Venture to All Payment Networks
• All Facebook: Forrester Says Facebook Commerce Won’t Take Off
• Mobile Commerce Daily: Survey Says Majority of Smartphone Users have Bought Physical Goods via Mobile