If you're trying to think through the implications of proposed Debit Card Interchange and Routing rules, you might want to take a look at the following resources:

• Durbin Video. C-SPAN is providing an online video of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors meeting where the draft Durbin rules were first released. After the key provisions are introduced, the Governors' spent most of the meeting probing the staff on the rationale behind the proposed rules. Very interesting.

• Durbin Comments. Another great resource to keep your eye on is the industry feedback to the proposed regulations. Final comments are due back to the Federal Reserve by February 22, 2011. In the meantime, it is all posted online as it is received.

NACHA has announced the election of new officers to its Board of Directors. The elected officers will serve a two-year term:

• Pat Thelen, CTP, Executive Director, J.P. Morgan, Chairperson
• Chrystina M. Giorgio, AAP, Senior Vice President, Operations, Sandy Spring Bank, Vice Chairperson
• Russell K. Oatman, Senior Vice President, Corporate Treasury Services Group, First National Bank of Omaha, Secretary/Treasurer

Bank of America has reported financial results for the fourth quarter 2010.

Global Card Services returned to profitability in the fourth quarter of 2010 with net income of $1.5 billion. Excluding the $10.4 billion goodwill impairment charge in the third quarter of 2010, Global Card Services would have been profitable for four straight quarters. New U.S. consumer card accounts in the quarter were up 9 percent from the third quarter of 2010.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• Wall Street Journal: Surprise: Banks Ease Card Fees
• NetBanker: Full FinovateEurope 2011 Demo Roster Revealed
• Harvard Business Review: Google's Mobile Strategy - Fast Pipes, Mobile Money, and Cheap Phones

Visa and InsurCard have announced an agreement naming Visa as InsurCard’s preferred brand for the delivery of payment for insurance claims. "InsurCard provides the insurance industry with card-based solutions for the payment of claims, expanding the penetration of electronic payments in an industry traditionally reliant on check payments."

Usablenet has announced integration with PayPal’s mobile payments product, Mobile Express Checkout, to enhance payment offerings on clients’ mobile websites. Usablenet can now optimally extend PayPal’s Mobile Express Checkout to mobile commerce websites and other supported solutions, such as mobile applications, tablets, Facebook & other social media, and in-store kiosks.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• NFC Forum Publishes Transport Ticketing White Paper
• Kohl’s to Partner with First Data on Private Brand Credit Card Processing
• Western Union Announces Major Bank Signing in Russia
• Higher One Joins the Secure Vault Payments Network
• SAP Enables New Approach to Billing for Telecommunications Industry
• NEOVIA To Acquire Optimal Payments

• Forbes: How $150 Oil Prices Help MasterCard
• Bloomberg: PayPal Argues Against Fee Cap as Fed Decision Looms
• Wall Street Journal: US Bank To Raise Checking Pricing Earlier Than Expected
• Bloomberg: Barney Frank Backs Changes to Debit-Card Swipe Fees
• New York Times: Debit Card Predators (Editorial)
• SmartMoney: Banks Begone: Can You Really Go Cash-Only?
• Digital Money Blog: Mobile Challenges to the Financial Sector
• Daily Mail: Fake £20 Elvis Presley Banknote Fools Teller in German Central Bank

PayPal's parent eBay announced financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2010 today.

eBay's Payments segment (including PayPal and BillMeLater) revenue was $971 million for the quarter, an increase of 22% year over year; $3,436 million for the year, an increase of 23%. Net total payment volume (TPV) for the quarter was $26.9 billion, an increase of 26% year over year; $91.9 billion for the year, an increase of 28%. In term of revenue mix, Merchant Services (the off-eBay business) represented 61.5% of TPV; international was 43.4% of TPV. The company processed 421.1 million transactions.

For the quarter, PayPal's revenue cut (now called its "global take rate") decreased slightly to 3.45%, along with a slightly lower transaction processing expense rate of 1.10% and a slightly lower transaction loss rate of 0.15%. Active accounts (defined as active in the last 12 months) reached 94.4 MM, up 16% year over year.

Bill Me Later's volume for the quarter was up and now stands at 1.7% of the total Payments segment TPV. Outstandings are now at $999 million, and net charges offs dropped to 6.1%. READ MORE »

Stay on top of the payments industry! Glenbrook’s payments education programs offer comprehensive, unbiased, and time-efficient ways to keep current.

Payments Essentials Webinars – Tuesdays from 10:30AM -11:30AM PST, $149

February 1, 2011: Cards Essentials with Carol Coye Benson (Basics Level)

February 8, 2011: Beyond PCI with Bryan Derman and Carol Coye Benson (Insight Level)

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

February 16-17, 2011: Santa Clara, CA. - with Scott Loftesness and Carol Coye Benson

April 13-14, 2011: New York City - with Bryan Derman and Carol Coye Benson

Starbucks has announced that it now accepts mobile payments in all US company-operated stores.

Building on the earlier introduction of Starbucks Card Mobile App for select BlackBerry smartphones, iPhone and iPod touch and a successful mobile payment test program, customers now have access to the largest mobile payment program in the US and the fastest way to pay at Starbucks. This national program now includes nearly 6,800 company-operated stores and more than 1,000 Starbucks in US Target locations.

"Spend on Visa cards in Europe grew by over 16% in 2010 to total over €1 trillion", according to results released by Visa Europe. "This growth now means that €1 in every €8 of consumer spend in Europe is spent on a Visa card, up from €1 in €9 in 2009." The Visa Europe Annual Report 2010 was also released.

CyberSource has announced the results of its annual surveys of eCommerce fraud in North America and the U.K.

In the U.S. and Canada, online merchants say their 2010 fraud rate remained at 0.9% for the second straight year. U.K. merchants, on the other hand, say their fraud rate rose from 1.6% in 2009 to an average of 1.9% in 2010—twice the rate seen by U.S./Canadian merchants. CyberSource experts point to a number of likely causes for this development in the U.K., ranging from the greater incidence of cross-border eCommerce within the European region to “fraud migration” in which fraudsters, facing stiff challenges in one location, simply direct their efforts elsewhere, including the U.K.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• Foregenix launches FScout Enterprise to Help Organizations Achieve PCI-DSS Compliance
• Smart Card Alliance to Provide Full-day Open Bank Card Payments Workshop for Transit
• Acculynk Bringing PaySecure to the Mobile Channel

• SpringWise: SwipeGood: Rounding up Credit Card Purchases Creates a Monthly Donation to Charity
• postalnews blog: USPS to try selling gift cards at post offices
• Digital Transactions: Acquirers Will Benefit from Durbin, But Gain Could be Short-Lived
• BostInnovation: Mobile Self-Checkout AisleBuyer Looks to National Retailers in 2011

Verifi has announced the availability of Verifi Decline Salvage as a standalone service for recurring billers, independent of the company's payment gateway. "Decline Salvage uses proprietary logic to analyze and re-submit declined credit card transactions for an approved authorization, saving merchants time and costly fees."

Chase Paymentech has announced the launch of Safetech™ Fraud and Security Solutions, a new suite of services designed to protect online merchants from fraud and POS merchants from data breaches.

“Chase Paymentech is wise to bring together these much needed solutions to their merchants,” said Carol Coye Benson, managing partner at Glenbrook Partners. “We now live in a world where managing risks associated with payment fraud and data security is part of the daily routine for merchants everywhere. By closely integrating these tools with the payment processing work streams, the Safetech approach makes the process more efficient.”

Global Payments and Planet Payment have announced agreements to provide multi-currency processing services. "The agreements include the offering of Global HomeCurrencyPay, an innovative multi-currency processing solution powered by Planet Payment, to Global Payments' base of ISO and merchant customers in the United States and Canada."

ActivePath has introduced an enhanced version of its ActiveMail for Retail Banking, that enable banks and other depository institutions to achieve compliance with the FDIC’s Overdraft Payment Supervisory Guidance via the use of actionable alerts that can be sent to customers whose accounts are in overdraft or close to being overdrawn, empowering them to accept or decline overdraft protection.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• SOFTBANK MOBILE in Japan Selects Gemalto for Mobile Contactless Payment Trial
• ThreatMetrix Achieves Record Revenue, Billings, Transactions, and Customer Growth in 2010
• Main Street Softworks Inc. Adds Credit Card Enhanced Data (Level III) Reporting Features
• ValidSoft Technology Targets Belgian Bank Card Fraud Crisis
• ProPay Partners with 3DCart to Provide Merchants a Complete Set of eCommerce Tools
• Mitek Seeing Strong Deployment of its Mobile Remote Deposit Capture Application
• BPC Banking Technologies and Banca Transilvania Introduce Western Union Transfers through ATM´S

• New York Times: Now at Starbucks: Buy a Latte By Waving Your Phone
• Portals and Rails: Retail Payments Risk Forum Hosts 4th Annual "Emerging Risks in Emerging Payments" Conference
• eMarketer: In-App Purchases Become Major Mobile Revenue Stream
• Cult of Mac: iPad Cash Register Arrives at Grand Central Coffee Shop

The NRF has updated and republished its "Mobile Retailing Blueprint".

Version 2 of the Mobile Blueprint, including an updated executive summary, maturity model, new mobile applications for marketing, commerce and operation, alternative payment information and how to use new technologies to speed mobile implementations, is now available.

First Data has released its First Data SpendTrend analysis for closed loop prepaid cards for analysis for the full month of December 2010 compared to December 2009.

Year-over-year dollar volume growth of activations was 2% in December, a decrease from November’s growth of 8.6%. Overall redemption dollar volume growth was 4.6% in December, compared to 5.9% in November.

JPMorgan Chase has reported financial results for the fourth quarter 2010.

• For its Card Services unit, Chase report net income of $1.3 billion, compared with a net loss of $306 million in the prior year.
• Excluding the Washington Mutual portfolio, the net charge-off rate was 7.08%, down from 8.64% in the prior year and 8.06% in the prior quarter; and the 30-day delinquency rate was 3.66%, down from 5.52% in the prior year and 4.13% in the prior quarter.
• Excluding the Washington Mutual portfolio, sales volume was $83.2 billion, an increase of $7.5 billion, or 10%.

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• Fiserv Delivers Retail Online: New Name, New Features for eCom Internet Banking Clients
• Cartera Commerce and Vesdia Announce Merger
• McKeever’s Price Chopper is First To Market With WorldPay’s E2E Encryption Solution

• Wall Street Journal: The Hazards of Using Cards Abroad
• iStockAnalyst: China 2010 Cross-Bank Card Transactions Up 46% YoY According to China UnionPay
• VentureBeat: Kabbage Raises $6.65M to Kick-Start Online Sellers with a Cash Advance
• Los Angeles Times: Small Town Launches Its Own Stimulus Effort: a Local Currency