Chase has announced the addition of two new credit cards - Ink and Ink Capital - to its Ink portfolio of business cards that provide additional purchase rewards or an interest-payment refund to customers with Chase business checking accounts. READ MORE

J.P. Morgan has announced that it has "significantly advanced its commercial card expansion initiative in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to provide corporate clients with higher degree of visibility and flexibility on spending and expenses in today’s challenging economic environment. As part of its continued investment in its global Treasury Services business, J.P. Morgan has introduced several new commercial card product offerings and service enhancements in the region, while a number of new product offerings are due to launch early next year." READ MORE

Visa has announced Visa IntelliLink Spend Management – calling it "a new global information tool that provides extensive reporting and expense management capabilities for organizations of all sizes on a single scalable platform." READ MORE

Chase Card Services has announced Ink℠ from Chase, a suite of business cards developed specifically for small businesses. The new business card portfolio includes four distinct cards "to deliver on the unique needs of small business owners and marks Chase’s introduction of a pay-in-full charge card – a first from issuers of Visa or MasterCard." READ MORE

MasterCard and CyberShift have announced an alliance to provide businesses with CyberShift's Expense Management Automation solution. According to the companies, "the agreement provides MasterCard issuers with a compelling travel and expense management solution that they can offer to their corporate card customers. Through the combined capabilities of CyberShift and MasterCard, corporate card customers will have access to a flexible expense management solution, open integration to travel booking systems of choice, superior travel and spend analytics, BlackBerry(R) smartphone support, digital receipts filing, hotel folio data and much more, all delivered via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model." READ MORE

MasterCard has announced enhancements to its corporate meeting solutions portfolio that it says will "provide companies with greater control, efficiency and transparency around meeting planning and management. The company has partnered with two leading providers of online meeting solutions to address the needs of different stakeholders in today's fragmented corporate meetings market." READ MORE

J.P. Morgan has announced the launch of Total Settlement, an electronic payment solution that helps businesses simplify the payment of supplier invoices and lay the foundation for complete order-to-pay automation. According to the bank, "Total Settlement consolidates Automated Clearing House (ACH), commercial card, wire, and standard paper check payments in a single file, eliminating the extra effort in accounts payable involved with processing multiple payment types. A self-service web portal for suppliers provides valuable payment status information, remittance details and allows suppliers to maintain their own contact and payment-related information." READ MORE

American Express OPEN has announced the OPEN Forum, a new online resource and networking site for business owners. According to Amex, "the site is designed to forge meaningful business connections and provide practical, actionable information and insights from influential bloggers, industry leaders, and savvy entrepreneurs. In addition, the site will aggregate relevant online small business conversations from Twitter." READ MORE

Newly available over on our PaymentsViews.com sister site is a new Glenbrook research brief titled "Credit Card Acceptance for B2B Payments" by Glenbrook's Erin McCune and Carol Coye Benson.

This new research brief is based findings from a series of interviews conducted with business-to-business suppliers about credit card acceptance conducted earlier this year. There's a form in the article for you to request a download of the report.

In an article titled "Cutting Off Mom & Pop Credit", Andrew Martin writes for the New York Times about how a "crackdown on credit limits by card companies is squeezing the nation’s 27 million small businesses, exacerbating the problems brought on by a stagnant economy."

See this earlier post about the drastic action that Advanta had to take against its small business borrowers.

BusinessWeek notes this week in an article titled "No Relief for Small Business Cardholders" that the "Credit Card Accountability Responsibility & Disclosure Act doesn't apply to small business cards." This issue also includes a comparison of various small business credit cards currently available.

In a press release, the National Small Business Association has urged that "the Senate to approve the Landrieu-Snowe Amendment to the Credit CARD Act of 2009 (H.R. 627/S. 414) in order to guarantee that small-business owners are fully protected by the critical safeguards included in the bill. Small business reliance on credit cards is at an all-time high with 59 percent of respondents to the recent NSBA Small Business Credit Card Survey (NSBA Survey) using credit cards to finance their business--up from 49 percent just four months ago." READ MORE

Late yesterday, Advanta announced that, due to the negative performance of its securitized credit card portfolio, it was taking steps to "designed to dramatically limit the Company’s credit loss exposure and maximize its capital and its liquidity measures." One of those steps involves shutting down all of its small business credit cards to future use as of June 10. Beginning on that date, Advanta's credit card customers would not be able to make new purchases using their Advanta-issued credit cards.

See also this front page article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by Harold Brubaker.

MasterCard Worldwide has announced that the U.S. Postal Service and Dunkin' Donuts have joined the list of merchants that provide small businesses with automatic discounts and savings through the MasterCard Easy Savings Program. Eligible MasterCard business credit and signature debit, U.S. cardholders enrolled in the program will now receive an automatic 5 percent rebate on Click 'N Ship purchases made with the United States Postal Service at usps.com, and an automatic 5 percent rebate on purchases at Dunkin' Donuts. READ MORE

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) has released a report titled "Credit Cards and Small Business: Benefits, Opportunities and Policy Debate" that looks at the importance of credit cards to the small business community, and explains the "ill effects of increased government regulation on the industry." READ MORE

In a press release, MasterCard Worldwide said it has been named the "Best Corporate Cards and Expense Services Provider" by Global Finance magazine for the third consecutive year.

The award was bestowed to MasterCard for innovative solutions that enable value and efficiency in commercial payments. MasterCard was selected by the publication's editors who incorporate input from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology experts in determining the award's recipient. The results of the exclusive survey are published in the March 2009 issue of the magazine.

US Bank says that "businesses that are looking for ways to add to their bottom lines now have a new way to save and earn rewards while managing expenses with the U.S. Bank Cash Rewards Business Platinum Card. Cardholders can enjoy savings on the business purchases they make most, earning three percent cash back on cellular, gas and office supply purchases and one percent cash back on all other purchases." READ MORE

American Express Global Commercial Card has released a new study "detailing how companies are instituting best practices and driving savings to control their costs in an economic downturn. Working with Accenture, American Express interviewed a number of Fortune 500 companies in industries ranging from consumer products to business services. These companies had median gross revenues of $30 billion, and were identified as having leading T&E spending policies." (Full study here ). READ MORE

After falling to its lowest measurement ever in November, economic confidence among small business owners rose slightly in December. The Discover Small Business Watch rose to 72.8 in December, up 5.3 points from November. The index was buoyed by increased optimism that their own business prospects are improving and an indication that more will increase spending on business development in the next six months. READ MORE

Bank of America has announced new purchasing card and travel card capabilities that enable its clients to issue and settle in local currencies throughout Europe. READ MORE

Visa has announced the introduction of Visa Accounts Payable (AP) Automation, a new service Visa says is "designed to help large and mid-sized businesses reduce costs associated with expense management, purchasing and accounts payable processes." A Visa white paper is also available online. READ MORE

Citi has announced the launch of Citibank Paylink for Cards - calling it "an end-to-end electronic payment solution for corporations, financial institutions and public sector clients, that combines the capabilities and benefits of a purchasing card with the control and consistency of a traditional electronic payment process." READ MORE

Visa has released results of a global survey finding that "74 percent of respondents are satisfied with their commercial payment card programs. Currently, 50 percent of respondents currently use commercial payment cards to make payments as part of their overall cash management strategies. In the next 12 – 18 months, 52 percent of survey respondents intend to reduce reliance on checks and 45 percent plan to increase their use of commercial card programs." READ MORE

Visa has announced the launch of Visa SavingsEdge, a new program designed to help small business owners save money with automatic discounts at top-tier business merchants. READ MORE

American Express has announced it has signed a hotel folio agreement with IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) that enables American Express to provide its corporate card customers with reports that break down their lodging expenditures at nearly 2,800 IHG properties in the U.S. READ MORE

Rearden Commerce and American Express have announced American Express Anywhere - calling it "an innovative new mobile service that enables corporate customers to manage travel details and business through their BlackBerry smartphones." READ MORE

Visa has unveiled the Visa Business Network, calling it "the first-ever application dedicated to connecting small businesses on Facebook. The Visa Business Network has been created with small businesses, for small businesses, and is a unique environment built on Facebook Platform for the small business arena." READ MORE

Visa has released an updated commercial payment card best practices study that it says "reveals procure-to-pay (P2P) automation is among leading factors contributing to more efficient business processes and cost savings at today’s companies across the globe." READ MORE

AT&T and Citi have announced the launch of the AT&T Universal Business Rewards Card that rewards small business owners for their purchases and also provides them with a prescription drug benefits program and an around-the-clock personal business assistant. READ MORE

The U.S. Postal Service has selected U.S. Bank to provide purchasing cards and Voyager fleet cards under the new General Services Administration (GSA) SmartPay2 contract. READ MORE