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

On the wires:

• Visa Europe and Monitise Sign Partnership Agreement to Develop Mobile Payments
• MoneyGram International and Movistar Sign Strategic Agreement
• INSIDE Secure Brings Biometric On-Card Matching Security to SecuRead NFC Solution
• MoneyGram and Visa Extend Remittance Service to World's Largest Remittances Corridor
• INETCO “Ready to Rocket” with INETCO Insight Business Transaction Management Solution
• ProPay Debuts 'Zumogo' Mobile Payment Application for Smartphones
• BillFloat Gives NewWave Communications Customers More Time to Pay Bills
• The Clearing House Announces New Board Leadership (PDF)
• TomorrowVentures & CompuCredit Holdings Corporation Invest in Social Payments Leader Twitpay

On the web:

• Rethink Wireless: Ericsson Unveils its Mobile Money Framework
• American Banker: Mobile Banking Pioneer Firethorn Shifts Gears
• Springwise: More donations to charity via rounded-up credit card purchases
• U.S. News: 8 Things You Can’t Do With Cash

The Clearing House has announced that it is seeing accelerating usage of Universal Payment Identification Codes (UPICs) by public and private sector entities across the U.S. UPIC payments have grown to a record $4 billion in the third quarter of 2008, up 61% compared to the same period a year ago. A UPIC is used for credit payments only and thus lowers the possibility of unauthorized debits, checks and demand drafts. The UPIC was developed by the Electronic Payments Network (EPN), the ACH business of The Clearing House, in conjunction with the financial services industry. READ MORE »

The Clearing House Board of Directors has announced that James D. Aramanda has been named the company's Chief Executive Officer effective September 8. He succeeds Jeffrey P. Neubert, who will retire from The Clearing House following a transition period. READ MORE »

The Federal Reserve Banks (FRBs) and The Clearing House Payments Company (TCH) have announced plans to implement enhanced message formats to accommodate both cover payments and payments containing business remittance information on their respective U.S. dollar wire transfer systems, the Fedwire® Funds Service and CHIPS. READ MORE »

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• The Clearing House Payments Company today announced that Senior Vice President Susan Long will manage both paper check and electronic check clearing services on Oct. 1 and that Senior Vice President Jerry Milano, head of SVPCO Check Services, will retire on March 31, 2008. Long, who joined The Clearing House 14 years ago, had been running SVPCO’s electronic check services.

SVPCO - Electronic Clearing Services, the electronic check and check image exchange business of The Clearing House Payments Company, has announced that The Bank of New York is now participating in the SVPCO Image Payments Network.

The Clearing House and BITS have announced that member banks of BITS Payments Strategy Steering Committee (PSSC) have moved their payments initiatives to The Clearing House’s Strategic forum to create a single bank-driven focal point for payments issues for the financial services industry.

Endpoint Exchange LLC, a Metavante company, and SVPCO – Electronic Clearing Services, the electronic check and check image exchange business of The Clearing House Payments Company LLC, have announced that member financial institutions of both systems can now exchange check data and images.