Aite Group has announced a new report titled "Card Networks' Rebates and Incentives" that "addresses the strategic implications of card networks' rebates and incentives for industry stakeholders, including details concerning networks themselves, issuers, merchants, acquirers and regulators."

Aite Group has published a new report titled "The Future of Card Networks: Gauging Battle-Readiness for a Post-Visa IPO World" that "considers how the world will look in a post-Visa IPO world, in which the four major card networks, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, are publicly traded companies."

The eFinancial Enablers Council (eFEC), a roundtable of CEOs and division heads of leading Internet banking and payments providers, has announced the election of David S. Fortney as chairman. Mr. Fortney represents Metavante Corporation, where he serves as a senior vice president heading Metavante’s electronic presentment and payments business.

The days of merchant-subsidized credit card rewards programs, rapid increases in interchange fees, and confusing fee structures for credit card purchases are numbered, according to new research by Diamond Management & Technology Consultants.

BITS has released a 10 year retrospective titled "Decade of Difference" that takes a look back at the contributions made since BITS was founded in 1996.

The Mobile Marketing Association has announced that it has launched an m-Commerce Committee to develop best practices, standards and other guidelines for mobile-commerce initiatives. The committee will serve as a consortium between wireless carriers and key players in the m-commerce ecosystem, including brands, retailers and media. The committee's goal is to create a framework that provides consumers with a simple, consistent, user-friendly m-commerce experience across the industry.

The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association (NBPCA), a non-profit, inter-industry trade association created to advance the success of network branded prepaid cards, has launched its first membership year with twenty-eight members, all leaders in the prepaid card industry. The NBPCA has developed a three-year business plan with specific deliverables for each year, the goal being to materially enhance the business environment for network branded prepaid cards.

The September 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review has an article by David Yoffie and Mary Kwak titled "With Friends Like These - The Art of Managing Complementors" that's recommended reading. While this article is about the tech industry, the parallels to the US card payments world are striking.

The Smart Card Alliance has announced its annual conference will be held October 3-6, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla in San Diego. The theme of this year's conference is "Preparing the Way for a Smart Future".

Aneace Haddad, founder and chairman of payment software company Welcome Real-time, posts an opinion piece on his blog titled "Has interchange hype brought us to the brink of a surcharging sea change?" in which he says "It would be more effective for banks to shift their frustration with merchants away from litigation and channel it into making payment cards more valuable for merchants."

The Journal of Financial Transformation's September 2006 issue contains an article by Adam Levitin - an attorney in Wilmington, Delaware - titled "The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems" (PDF). His conclusion: "The ultimate outcomes of these developments are uncertain, but one thing is not: the payments industry will look very different in a decade."

Marcia Vickers writes for Fortune about the future of the card associations - MasterCard and Visa - and asks whether this is the "end of a long, golden age for the two card behemoths" on the cusp of MasterCard's upcoming initial public offering.

A new working paper titled "The Future of Charge Card Networks" (PDF) by authors Robert E. Litan and Alex J. Pollock has been published by the Brookings Institution.

"At the end of the day, therefore, if none of the major scenarios or alternatives to the status quo is likely to produce significant benefits to consumers, as a class, one wonders what all of the controversy is about. It is a legitimate question."

Bloomberg reports on a US Supreme Court decision today that affirmed that "joint ventures have broad power to set prices without violating U.S. antitrust laws." The case, TEXACO INC. v. DAGHER ET AL (PDF), involved oil company joint venture pricing decisions.

Counsel for a group of merchants that has sued all the major credit card companies for antitrust violations has announced that, following negotiations, Discover has agreed to drop its "No Surcharge Rule'' and, consequently, that Discover would be dropped from the antitrust class action currently pending in a Brooklyn, NY federal court before District Judge John Gleeson.

[Update - October 11, 2006: Visa this morning announced plans to reorganize and, eventually, to pursue an IPO].

James Kelleher reports for Reuters on whether Visa's in any hurry to follow MasterCard in going public.

Visa USA Executive Vice President William M. Sheedy pens an op-ed column for the Washigton Times on "litigious merchants", particularly those in the fuel industry advocating new economics for payment card acceptance.

The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports that MasterCard is requesting the disqualification of Minneapolis law firm Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi from a group of antitrust suits "because one of the firm's partners investigated MasterCard while he was a Justice Department lawyer."

MasterCard and Peppercoin have announced signing a Letter of Intent towards forming an alliance to accelerate card usage for small payments at the physical point of sale and online.

MasterCard this morning has filed an amended S-1/A Registration Statement with the SEC.

MasterCard International, Keycorp, Hitachi and Oak Hill Venture Partners have announced the formation of a new company to expand the MULTOS smart card platform.

The Alliance for Affinity Security has announced its launch focusing on administering new affinity programs designed to encourage the adoption of employer group health savings accounts (HSAs) and other defined contribution health care accounts, such as flexible spending accounts

Attempting to address the nature of competition between card schemes as it relates to the level of interchange fees, the Payments System Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia has announced a revised Standard to apply to the setting of interchange fees in the designated Bankcard, MasterCard and Visa credit card schemes in Australia.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has announced a new white paper sponsored by Visa International that assesses the
evolution of electronic payments systems in the six largest Latin American countries, as well as prospects for overcoming obstacles to full modernization. The study found that across the region collaboration between governments and the financial services industry has led to greater penetration of electronic payment products.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) and Visa USA have announced an agreement to support participating Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies nationwide in offering their members co-branded debit cards to pay for healthcare related expenses.

Visa International has released a global contactless payments specification.

MasterCard yesterday filed an amended S-1 registration with the SEC. Among the changes included in the amended version were the naming of additional investment bank underwriters (adding Citigroup, HSBC, and JP Morgan Chase as joint bookrunnners to Goldman, Sachs who is acting as both joint bookrunner and sole global coordinator) and the disclosure of a Consumer Cards Incentive Agreement signed in April of this year with MBNA. In June, Bank of America announced plans to acquire MBNA.

Stuart Elliott reports for the New York Times on yesterday's announcement by Visa USA that it is switching creative advertising agencies from its agency for the last 20 years, BBDO Worldwide, to TBWA/Chiat/Day. Both agencies are part of the Omnicom Group.

Eileen Alt Powell reports for the AP on two new class action lawsuits filed today against Visa USA, MasterCard Inc. and a number of major banks over interchange fees. The cases were filed by the American Booksellers Association and the National Grocers Association and several of its members, including Affiliated Foods Midwest, Coborn's Inc., D'Agostino's Supermarkets and the Minnesota Grocers Association.

Convenience Store News reports on a Nov. 10th amicus brief filing with the US Supreme Court by the Food Marketing Institute urging the court to reject an invitation from Visa to "create an antitrust safe harbor" regarding interchange fees. The complete brief (PDF) is available online on the FMI web site.