On the web:

• First Look: Google Wallet "Pay by Gmail" (and the Pain of Authentication) - NetBanker - "Bottom line: This is a brilliant play by Google, taking everyone by surprise."
• PayPal Here in Japan: One year, 2,700 stores and thousands of happy merchants - PayPal Blog - "Via SoftBank retail shops and through SoftBank's business sales network across Japan we can now reach 80% of the Japanese small businesses that still do not accept credit card transactions today."
• The $45M Heist Heard ‘Round the World - 41st Parameter's Blog - "Given the scale of the global credit card networks, it is almost impossible to detect every kind of attack."
• GiftCards.com Agrees To Buy Giftly To Grow A Mobile Platform - TechCrunch - "Giftly built a platform that avoided the hassle of individually dealing with merchants and point-of-sale systems."
• Shoppers start adding digital gift cards to Apple’s Passbook wallet - Internet Retailer - "Cash Star says. 30% of e-mailed e-gift cards are opened on a smartphone, and 50% of those smartphones run iOS6."
• The End Of Monthly Bills - Snarketing 2.0 - "Monthly bills are so 20th century. There’s no need for them."
• Here are the videos in the Commerce track (including Google Wallet) from last week's Google IO Conference
• iZettle wants to 'fundamentally change the process of becoming a customer' - "A good example might be that an auto dealer doesn't try to sell a Ferrari to everyone. That's essentially what banks have been doing for a while and most small cafes aren't looking for Ferraris…"
• Do Prepaid Cards Spell the End of Cash? - TMG Blog - "Did you know that March 1, 2013, marked “the end of cash” for the U.S. government?"
• Phone Firms Sell Data on Customers - Wall St. Journal - "…carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit..."
• Bank innovation: this time there's commitment - Financial Services Club Blog - "Are banks truly committed to innovate? Will they invest without a business case? Will they allow failure? Will they let the innovation cannibalise the existing business model?"
• Wallet Wars – Coming to a Mobile Near You Soon - Gemalto Telecom Blog - "Consumers want help managing their lives; banks, retailers and mobile network operators want customer loyalty; it’s down to all of us to work together, securely, to offer the best possible consumer experience for mobile wallets."
• SumUp, One Of Europe’s Many Mobile Payments Startups, Launches In Russia - TechCrunch - "SumUp said Russian businesses can now sign up to its service in Svyaznoy stores as well as on its own website..."
• Not just contactless, but M&S contactless - Tomorrow's Transactions - "It was a brilliant plan, and we might have got away with it if it hadn't been for you darn kids."

On the wires:

• Hastings Entertainment Adds Payment by PayPal and Bill Me Later Options to goHastings.com - "PayPal is used by millions of consumers and we feel that in addition to the added security benefits, our customers will also enjoy a simpler, more convenient checkout process when using PayPal."
• Wells Fargo Leads Fraud Management by Launching 3-Domain Verification for Commercial Card Customers - "In a related enhancement, Wells Fargo is also issuing EMV-compliant WellsOne Commercial Cards with an embedded microprocessor chip and traditional magnetic stripe to customers…"
• NCR to Make Mobile Ordering Easier for Jamba Juice Customers - "Working with NCR and PayPal we are using mobile ordering and payment technologies to align with our brand essence of a healthy, active lifestyle and help us deliver more value to our customers."
• American Express Offers Promotion of Free Two-Day Shipping with ShopRunner to U.S. Consumer Cardmembers - "Shipping costs can really add up when shopping online and with this new offer, our Cardmembers can benefit from the savings that ShopRunner provides at many of their favorite places to shop."
• Wake Up and Smell the Coffers! Mobey Forum gets Bullish with Banks at MobeyDay 2013 - "Many financial institutions still do not appreciate the revenue generating power offered by the mobile channel."
• France Overtakes UK as Europe’s Top Card Fraud Victim, FICO Map Reveals - "For the first time in years, the UK did not have the highest card fraud losses in Europe — France took its place, with 29 percent of the region’s losses, compared to the UK’s 27 percent."
• NCR Installs First EMV Compliant ATM in U.S. at People’s United Bank - "The upgrade of U.S. ATMs – including those at People’s United – includes an upgrade to the card reader hardware inside the machines as well as a software upgrade."
• Dynamics Inc.'s New LifeCode™ Electronic Card Empowers Consumers to "Save Your Own Life(SM)"
• Citi Invites Its Cardholders to Upgrade with Hotel Privileges - "Hotel Privileges provides special access to more than 1,000 luxury hotels around the world…"
• Oberthur Technologies’ dragonFly NFC SIM Card Certified by MasterCard and Visa - "As the fastest card on the market, it offers speedy download of new services and files through an integrated “NFC Turbo Engine”…"
• Net Element to Acquire Aptito, a Next Generation Cloud-Based Point of Sale Payments Platform - "Restaurants equipped with Aptito have experienced key benefits including increased revenue per table, higher customer service scores and now have a tool to drive acquisition and retention of new customers…"

On the web:

• California Sues JPMorgan Chase Over Credit Card Cases - NY Times - "JPMorgan Chase … deluged the courts with dubious lawsuits to collect soured credit-card debt."
• How hackers allegedly stole “unlimited” amounts of cash from banks in just hours - ArsTechnica - "Prosecutors didn't identify the payment processors except to say one was in India and the other in the United States."
• PayPal exec aims to “obliterate passwords from the face of the planet” - ArsTechnica - "Our intention is to really obliterate, within a certain number of years, both passwords and PINs..."
• One good reason to accept Bitcoins: It screws credit card companies - Pando Daily - "Merchants should enjoy it while it lasts."
• Mobile Gift Card App Gyft Partners With BitPay To Start Accepting Bitcoin Payments In Its Android App - TechCrunch - "Bitcoin is hard to use today, and that’s a good thing. There are still bugs and it is too risky for the average consumer."
• WePay Debuts Veda, An Intelligent Risk Engine That Leverages Social Media Data To Prevent Merchant Fraud - TechCrunch - "A traditional credit score only shows a sliver of who you are, but an online profile allows us to assign our users a more accurate ‘WePay credit score’ based on their personal history of verified, social data."
• No big bang for mobile payments - Business Spectator - "Key to this is understanding that mobile payments are not a vertical market. Players must understand how the different participants in a payment system – the merchant, issuer, and consumer – can all benefit through mobile."
• Adam Smith, Paul Krugman and Bitcoin - Tomorrow's Transactions Blog - "There won't be a single world currency (whether the Dollar or the Remibi) and there won't be a single virtual currency (whether Bitcoin or MintChip). There will be lots of currencies and we will all be better off because of it."
• Free banking at risk as EU wants us to bank anywhere in Europe - Telegraph - "European proposals that would allow Britons to switch to a bank account in another country could hasten the demise of free banking, experts have warned."
• Mobile Payments Service Wins Bill and Melinda Gates Innovator Award - eCommerce Bytes - "Boleto is a unique barcode payment ticket that contains the customer's unique purchase data and Trak's bank information."

On the wires:

• Eight Members Of New York Cell Of Cybercrime Organization Indicted In $45 Million Cybercrime Campaign - "A four-count federal indictment was unsealed in Brooklyn charging eight defendants with participating in two worldwide cyberattacks that inflicted $45 million in losses on the global financial system in a matter of hours."
• Value-Based Payment Models Expected to Reach Tipping Point by 2018 - "Transitioning to payment models that base compensation on outcomes requires physicians and health plans to exchange new kinds of information – different than what is required under today’s predominant fee-for-service arrangements."
• Retailers, Listen Up: High Rates of Mobile Shopping Cart Abandonment Tied to Poor User Experience - "While the majority of smartphone and tablet owners (68%) have attempted to make a purchase on their device, two-thirds (66%) failed to complete a transaction due to obstacles encountered during checkout."
• First Data Releases April 2013 SpendTrend® Analysis - "Year-over-year dollar volume growth increased 5.1% in April, a slowdown from March’s 6.0% growth."

On the web:

• India: Oxigen ties up with NPCI to unveil instant remittance service OxiCash for unbanked people - TechCircle.in - "OxiCash is a mobile wallet service through which people can make money transfers to any bank and also receive funds using the IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) platform of the NPCI…"
• Google Wallet chief leaves the company - VentureBeat - "Osama Bedier, the head of Google Wallet is out, according to several sources."
• Gay Bankers, Once Silent, Speak of Progress — and Hurdles - American Banker - "No one should be afraid to come to work every day as who they are, and no one should have to check who they are at the door…"
• PayPal’s John Lunn reveals how online retailers are using consumer data to beat high street stores - The Next Web - "…find out which startups are helping online retailers to maintain this market dominance, and what physical retailers should do next to fight back."
• Why mobile wallets alone will fail - Cyriac Roeding (shopkick CEO) - "The problem with mobile payments is that payment isn't a problem in the shopping world."
• Off The Schneid - AVC - "I've led a new venture investment for USV, which closed a few weeks ago and was announced last night. The company is Coinbase and my blog post announcing the investment is on the USV blog."
• Purchase, Deposit, and Bank from a Smartphone with Paidpiper - Programmable Web - "Paidpiper represents a new player to the field with a slightly different value proposition over some of its competitors."
• CardFlight Partners With Stripe And Launches SDK To Become The ‘Stripe Of Real-World Payments’ - TechCrunch - "Enter CardFlight, which is launching with an encrypted, Square-like card reader of its own, as well as an SDK and APIs that will allow developers to create apps and take “card-present” payments on their mobile apps."
• EMV Takes Center Stage on Day Two of THE Tech EVENT - Convenience Store News - "Several speakers stressed in today’s standing-room-only session that EMV is a set of guidelines, not standards."
• Prepaid Cards for Jobless Benefits - The Members Group - "…42 states in the U.S. now direct deposit monthly unemployment benefits to out-of-work consumers on reloadable prepaid cards…"
• Discover Card's Email Balance Alert is a Thing of Beauty - NetBanker - "The message is nicely laid out with plenty of white space and it's chock full of links to get more information."

On the wires:

• MasterCard to Power Nigerian Identity Card Program - "This program is the largest roll-out of a formal electronic payment solution in the country and the broadest financial inclusion initiative of its kind on the African continent."
• Wells Fargo Adds Bankers, Launches New Secured Credit Products to Help More Small Businesses - "Wells Fargo’s new Business Secured Credit Card also helps new businesses establish and rebuild business credit…"
• Tabbedout and Future POS Expand Partnership to Bring Unrivaled Merchant Marketing Solution to All Future Fusion Merchants - "This new partnership means that the Tabbedout merchant marketing solution, Periscope, is now available in the 4,000+ Future POS merchant locations that use the Future Fusion software in their restaurants, bars, and hotels…"
• Elavon Names Simon Haslam President and Chief Executive Officer - "Simon’s experience and passion for growth and innovation make him the best individual to lead Elavon as we continue to extend our global reach and the value we deliver to our customers."
• Barclays Uses Nuance Voice Biometrics to Identify Customers by the Sound of their Voice - "No longer will customers need to answer intrusive security questions in order to verify their identity. By simply speaking with an agent, a customer’s voice is verified using Nuance voice biometrics technology, making the authentication process quick, secure and transparent."

Act of Congress: How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't

Today, in an article titled "How Barney Frank foiled the banking lobby to form a new financial watchdog", the Washington Post ran an excerpt from the book discussing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the formation of which was a centerpiece of Dodd-Frank.

On the web:

• Silicon Valley firms claim new California data disclosure bill is “overbroad” - ArsTechnica - "If passed, the bill would allow an unprecedented amount of access to individuals to find out what companies know about us."
• The Man (Jack Dorsey) Who Made the Cash Register Obsolete - Inc. - "One guiding philosophy at Square is that technology should be so intuitive that no one stops to question how difficult it must have been to create. That philosophy is paying off."
• With Tablets, Businesses Ring Up at More Fanciful Cash Registers - New York Times - "With the advent of tablets, particularly the iPad, many stores have traded in their clunky cash registers for mobile devices."
• "Bankalytics" – Banks and Analytics - BankInnovation - "I feel the future of banks depends on how relevant they stay to the target market, based on how they analyse the Big Data in their databases."
• Bitcoin’s Last Mile Problem - TechCrunch - "The world needs Bitcoins to exist, even if the mass of humanity doesn’t use it."
• Online Sales-Tax Bill Could Get Senate Votes This Week - Storefront Backtalk - "The bill, known as the “Marketplace Fairness Act,” would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales tax, even if the e-tailer doesn’t have a physical presence in the state."
• Dunkin’ Donut email campaign showcases ongoing mobile payment endeavors - Mobile Commerce Daily - "Mobile payments are on the rise. And, this campaign helps the company solidify its place in the space."
• Are You the Weakest Link? - Retail Payments Risk Forum - "A basic tenet of security that we often mention in Portals and Rails is that experienced criminals attack the weakest points in the system."
• Small Banks Lead the Innovation Agenda: Are They Making the Elephants Dance? - "Today, we are witnessing numerous instances of smaller players spawning innovations across social media, self-service channels, mobile banking, pricing, payments etc. to deliver customer delight."

On the wires:

• American Express OPEN Simplifies Expense Tracking for Small Business with Launch of ReceiptMatch
• Clear2Pay and Earthport partner on low value clearing - "With the OPF Earthport Connect module, clients of the Open Payment Framework (OPF) will have out of the box connectivity to Earthport’s global payments infrastructure in over 50 countries."
• Consumers Want a More Seamless and Personalized Customer Experience From Their Bank - Cisco - "Overall, the report demonstrates consumer interest in more personalized, timely and valuable connections with banks…"
• ACI Worldwide Paves the Way to True Enterprise Payments with Universal Payments Platform - "The Universal Payments Platform is a solution that provides purpose-built payments functionality to orchestrate all aspects of payments processing for any payment type, any channel, any currency and any network."
• With Consumer Optimism Rising, Chase Blueprint Unveils New Initiative to Reinforce Positive Spending Habits - Drawing upon the expertise of Chase and respected experts, the Resource Center for Mindful Spending is a free knowledge center available at Chase.com/MindfulSpending.
• USA Technologies To Demonstrate Two New Cashless Payment Devices at NAMA OneShow - "The ePort G9 represents a redesigned, feature-rich offering for USAT’s popular JumpStart program. It will include all of the functionality of USAT’s NFC-enabled ePort G8, plus new features…"
• Boulder Valley Credit Union Introduces Tyfone Mobile Banking Financial Services - "One Tyfone client has reported more than a 10 percent mobile adoption from non-PC bankers, which in turn increases the ROI for the financial institution."

On the web:

• LG adds PayPal to its web-connected TVs - Internet Retailer - "PayPal significantly reduces the number of steps the user has to take in order to complete a transaction…"
• Mining digital gold - The Economist - "Even if it crashes, Bitcoin may make a dent in the financial world…"
• Analysts See Steady Credit-Card Use, Despite Fears of Consumer Cutbacks - Wall St. Journal - "...shoppers continued to swipe their credit cards at a healthy clip in the most recent quarter."
• eBay’s Paypal Acquires IronPearl To Fuel Growth Beyond 123M Users - TechCrunch - "There are only very few, world-reknowned growth hackers in the world and Stan (Chudnovsky) is one of them."
• The promise of Ripple - Reuters (Felix Salmon) - "I’ve been playing around a bit with Ripple, and I think it’s extremely promising."
• Now Backed By Andreessen & More, OpenCoin Looks To Build A Better Bitcoin — And A Universal Payment Ecosystem - TechCrunch - "Headed by financial services veterans like CEO Chris Larsen, who is also the founder of P2P lending giant Prosper, OpenCoin is on a mission to create a new kind of global currency."
• As Big Investors Emerge, Bitcoin Gets Ready for its Close-Up - NY Times - “To say highly speculative would be the understatement of the century.”
• PayPal / Discover Partnership to Launch April 19th - Reuters - "The deal means that, by the end of this year, PayPal will be accepted as a payment option in roughly 2 million retail stores that already take Discover credit cards."
• How advanced analytics are redefining banking - McKinsey - "Every single major decision to drive revenue, to control costs, or to mitigate risks can be infused with data and analytics…"
• Vodafone eyes M-Pesa launch in SE Asia - FT.com - "The company expects a potentially big market for M-Pesa in Myanmar…"
• E-cash in the attic - Consult Hyperion's Dave Birch: "The real point that I want to make, though, is that all of the factors that made Mondex inconvenient have vanished in a world with mobile phones, perhaps there is a kid in basement somewhere right now cooking up a bastard son of Mondex and Bitcoin and the e-cash revolution is, after all, just around the corner."
• Analysis: PayPal hopes to break shoppers' swipe habit in stores - Reuters - "There's no silver bullet for switching people from credit cards to PayPal. It will just take some time."
• The Bitcoin Crash Continues - Business Insider
• China UnionPay and Intel join forces for secure mobile payment - Engadget
• New Rwanda Diaries Ask, “Can We Build A Better Goat?” - CGAP
• Does mobile POS increase data security risks? - Mobile Commerce Daily
• Happy Birthday iPad - Asymco
• Facebook Will Peer Into Your Grocery Bag to Sell an Ad - Wired.com - "The system allows Facebook advertisers to target groups of users based on loyalty card usage at grocery stores and elsewhere, based on public records like auto registration, and based on email addresses consumers give out at retail checkout registers."
• Swipely Expands Its Credit Card-Based Loyalty System With Reputation Monitoring And Campaign Tracking - TechCrunch - "Since Swipely uses credit card data, it can not only show whether a campaign brought in new or returning customers, but also how much those customers spent on average."
• Banks' mobile apps fall short of the grade - Financial Services Club Blog

On the wires:

• Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions Announces Schedule for Annual Educational Event
• More Than Half of Surveyed Mobile Users Manage Personal Finances on Their Connected Devices, According to Research from IAB, InMobi & Viggle
• New Oxford Economics Study Confirms Negative Impact of Increased Bank Capital Levels on U.S. Economic and Job Growth - The Clearing House Association
• Centennial Bank Strengthens Its Merchant Relationships with Flexible, Efficient and Profit-driving Merchant Services from FIS
• Leaf Transforms Quick Serve Point of Sale Terminals Into Point of Smart Interactions

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson is disappointed at the lack of banking industry support for moving to same day ACH. According to Carol, she files this kind of banker thinking in her “don’t worry about online music, CD’s work just fine” folder. Read Carol's full commentary on this issue over on our PaymentsViews.com sister site.

A great friend of Glenbrook’s is Broox Peterson, formerly Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at Visa International and currently in private practice. In 2006, Broox wrote a great article that we shared on Payments News about regulatory implications that entrepreneurs may want to consider when building a new payments company - something that, in our experience, entrepreneurs do not always fully understand or appreciate. He’s just updated that article to reflect some recent changes – and we’re delighted to be able to share the updated version on Payments Views!

Glenbrook's Erin McCune is back from NACHA Payments 2012, and the most interesting things she heard and saw had to do with small business banking and payments, a long suffering, underserved segment of the market. Why underserved?

Small businesses are traditionally ill served because the consumer platform is inadequate and treasury management solutions are overkill. They are stuck in the middle, with too few features or way too much complexity. This is ironic given that small businesses are a prized, profitable, customer segment.

Over on Payments Views, Erin wonders if this might be "the dawn of a new era for small biz banking".

Latinia, a Spanish messaging vendor, has announced a ‘tweet banking’ notification product.

Latinia strictly proposes the use of Twitter as an alert [communications] channel, via direct messages (DM), where the convenience of the clients prevails, being able to choose which channel to use to receive status of their accounts, cash withdrawals, etc., whether via SMS, push-notes or Twitter. In Latinia we have called it ‘tweet banking’. To this respect, Latinia has introduced the latest innovation of its infrastructure product LIMSP during this past year, after the implementation of push notifications, working on opening to new asynchronous channels on its service delivery product line-up.

The vast majority of bank executives are not confident that financial reform will be effective in detecting the broad risks to the financial system and preventing or reducing the threat of future taxpayer-funded bailout, according to Grant Thornton LLP’s 17th Bank Executive Survey, conducted in conjunction with Bank Director magazine.

When asked about the recent Dodd-Frank legislation, most bankers said that the provision that would impact their bank the most was the creation of consumer protection agency (73%). Bankers also were concerned that interchange fees paid by merchants and retailers to banks that issue debit cards would be set by the Federal Reserve in an amount that is “reasonable and proportional” (71%).

A new study released by Bankrate, Inc. shows that the costs of checking account fees have risen again this year to an all-time high. ATM fees leapt 5% from 2009, overdraft fees increased 3%, monthly fees for non-interest accounts increased 40%, monthly fees for not maintaining a minimum balance on an interest checking account increased almost 4%.

TCF National Bank announced that today it is filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Durbin Amendment, which is part of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010.

“We believe these provisions violate our Constitutional rights on three separate grounds: the regulations take our property without just compensation and without Due Process of Law; and they also deny us Equal Protection under the law.”

The majority of bank customers continue to pay nothing in bank fees, according to a recent survey by the American Bankers Association. 67% of consumers spend $3 or less in monthly bank fees for services such as checking account maintenance and ATM access. 53% percent of customers pay nothing. 14% pay more than $10 per month.

According to a recent Mintel Comperemedia consumer survey, awareness of the new Reg E overdraft legislation is surprisingly high with 60% of online adults aware of the upcoming changes.

But "Most consumers are unable to define exactly what Reg E will cover, making banks' efforts to promote it that much more difficult," comments Susan Wolfe, VP of financial services at Mintel Comperemedia. "In other words, consumers are aware that changes are coming to their overdraft programs, but are not exactly sure what it means for them."

According to a recent Accenture survey, "A majority of executives at leading retail banks globally say average customer profitability has remained below pre-crisis levels, while their customers' price-sensitivity and inclination to "shop around" have increased."

Interviews with 46 senior banking executives in 14 countries -- including many of the world's largest institutions -- suggest that nearly half of the top retail banks globally (46 percent) have seen their average customer profitability decline by 5 percent to 15 percent since the financial crisis, while an additional 11 percent have seen even greater customer profitability declines.

What is BankSimple all about? For some insights, listen to this edition of The Pipeline podcast by Dan Benjamin. In this edition of his excellent podcast series, Dan interviews Alex Payne - who recently left Twitter to join BankSimple as co-founder and Chief Product & Technology Officer. Some fascinating insights into what BankSimple is all about. (You can request to join BankSimple on this page. You can follow Alex Payne on Twitter: @al3x).

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) has released the Executive Summary of the results of a three-day nationwide cyber attack simulation exercise conducted in February. FS-ISAC conducted the Cyber Attack against Payment Processes (CAPP) exercise in conjunction with a variety of payment systems industry partners to test the ability of financial institutions, retailers, card processors, and businesses to respond to and recover from major cyber attack incidents impacting payment processes. Over 700 financial institutions and other organizations participated. READ MORE »

Equity Bank and Safaricom have announced "an ultimate bank account that lets customers transfer money to and from their M-PESA accounts via their mobile handsets while enjoying other benefits that come with the bank account." Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Michael Joseph said “M-PESA is proud to launch another new initiative with our partners Equity Bank by offering a new service that will target customers who are looking for the convenience of a bank account that uses M-PESA as the tool to deposit money into their accounts. This is a great idea that will drive customers to save into their bank accounts and enjoy the benefits of having the value added services of both M-PESA and an Equity bank account."

An M-KESHO account will offer short term loan facilities as well as pay interest on mobile account deposits. Credit evaluation for loans will be based on scoring using 6 months of history of the consumers M-PESA balances. There is no application for to fill - the loan request is made by the consumer using the mobile phone.

For more information, see "M-PESA meets microsavings with Equity Bank deal in Kenya" on the CGAP blog.

In a press release titled "Very Few Americans Find Statements by Financial Institutions Completely Believable", the Harris Poll says that its research found that "very few Americans (between 2% and 5%) say they find statements completely believable if made by a spokesperson for one of these types of companies" - and that "almost two-thirds of Americans (64%) say they find statements made by a spokesperson from a credit card company not at all believable." Baby Boomers are even more negative about statements from credit card companies - 69% say they find them not at all believable.

Beneficial Bank, a full-service bank that specializes in serving the financial needs of the greater Philadelphia and South Jersey regions, has announced it is unveiling a new, education-themed retail banking concept with the opening of two new branches in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

“Beneficial Bank is not only a bank, it is an education company that puts a priority on providing customers with the tools and resources that they need to become smarter about their money and do the right thing financially,” said Gerard P. Cuddy, President and CEO of Beneficial Bank. “Our two new campuses in Cherry Hill are a representation of Beneficial’s education philosophy and we plan for these innovative retail banks to become the blueprint for the next generation of Beneficial Banks.”

As a part of Beneficial Bank’s education mission and to commemorate its introduction to the community, the bank will donate $20,000 to the Cherry Hill Public Schools to support financial literacy education at Cherry Hill High School West and Cherry Hill High School East in the 2010-2011 school year.

For a fourth consecutive year, customer loyalty and perceptions of brand image among retail banking customers continue to decline, while satisfaction has leveled off, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study released today.

Now in its fifth year, the study finds that overall satisfaction of retail banking customers averages 748 on 1,000-point scale in 2010—a slight decrease from 749 in 2009. The brand image of banks has also continued to decline, with customers perceiving banks as being more profit-driven than customer-driven, compared with 2009. In addition, the percentage of customers who say they “definitely will not” switch banks during the next 12 months has decreased significantly during the past three years to 34 percent in 2010, compared with 46 percent three years ago in the 2007 study. READ MORE »

Over the weekend, GetDebit.com reported on Green Dot's plans to become a bank holding company through the acquisition of Bonneville Bancorp. In a post titled "A New Model for Retail Banking?" on our PaymentsViews.com website, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson reacts to the news - saying she thinks that Green Dot's move "gives, I think, a peek at what may come for retail banking in the future."

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has released an updated Retail Payment Systems Booklet that replaces the version issued in March 2004. The booklet is one of 12 that, in total, comprise the FFIEC IT Examination Handbook. The OCC commented: "The updated booklet incorporates developments in various aspects of retail payments activities since the first edition was issued and provides guidance on the risks and risk-management practices applicable to national banks. The booklet’s enterprise-wide perspective makes it a valuable tool to an entire organization in addition to an information technology department."

The Federal Reserve has provided a new online Federal Reserve Board publication titled What You Need to Know: New Overdraft Rules for Debit and ATM Cards intended to help consumers better understand rules that provide additional protection when a debit card or automated teller machine (ATM) transaction causes an account to be overdrawn. READ MORE »

In a post titled "Is the Internet Finally Robbing the Greedy Financier’s Gravy Train?", Sarah Lacy writes for TechCrunch about the many traditional industries the Internet has wrecked - and how she sees the recent activities among startups (and acquisitions) indicative of a new trend - companies that are "finally aligning interests between the finance professionals and the users." Lacy goes on to note that "finance has been so anti-innovation and so anti-consumer for so long, these companies don’t have to be perfect to be huge."

In an article titled "New Features, and Fees, for Checking Accounts" in the New York Times Bucks blog, Jennifer Saranow Schultz writes about Fifth Third Bank's pricing strategies involving packaging services together in lieu of providing free checking. She asks: "What services would you be willing to pay for if only your bank would offer them? Or would you rather just have free checking?"

In an article titled "Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees", Robin Sidel wrote for the Wall St. Journal's Saturday edition about steps that banks are taking to deal with up to $50 billion in lost revenue in 2010 as a result of changes to credit card and checking account legislation and regulatory requirements.

In an article titled "Cybercrooks stalk small businesses that bank online", Byron Acohido writes for USA Today about how small businesses are being targeted by fraudsters seeking to gain online banking account userid's and passwords. According to Acohido, "the American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a separate PC used exclusively for online banking."

In her "Color of Money" personal finance column in today's Washington Post, Michelle Singletary writes about 2010 being the "Year of Consumer Power" - reflecting on the legislative (The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009) and regulatory (overdraft fees) changes that are scheduled to take place as 2010 plays out.