Zuora has announced the release of Z-Payments, a complete payment solution built for subscription businesses that comes pre-integrated with the ability to accept PayPal payments. Z-Payments allows subscription-based businesses "to offer their customers flexible and secure online payment options, manage the complexities of collecting recurring subscription payments, and ultimately get paid faster."   » Continue Reading

eBay has announced that it has "reached a definitive agreement to acquire Bill Me Later®, the number two online-oriented payments brand, for approximately $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million worth of outstanding options, net of option exercise proceeds. The acquisition extends the company’s leadership in payments by combining Bill Me Later with eBay’s PayPal, the number one online-oriented payments brand. Subject to various closing conditions, the deal is expected to be completed by year-end." A webcast and a presentation are available online - along with a blog post from PayPal's CEO Scott Thompson.

Among other announcements today, eBay announced "plans to reduce its global workforce by approximately 10 percent, affecting about 1,000 employees in addition to several hundred temporary workers and the reduction of open positions."   » Continue Reading

PayPal's Mary Anne Gillespie, vice president of sales for PayPal’s merchant services division, has announced that Walmart.com, the online division of the world’s largest retailer, is now accepting PayPal.

Kount Inc. has announced that it has received a US patent for its proxy piercing technology that "determines the accurate geolocation of computers being used to initiate online transactions, providing methods for determining the true physical location of the customer's computer, even if an anonymous proxy is being used."   » Continue Reading

Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group has announced results of a survey finding that "important consumer segments such as baby boomers trust online payment providers more than they trust traditional banks."   » Continue Reading

In a post titled "Can These Startups Beat Paypal?", Stacey Higginbotham writes for GigaOm about several new payments startups and asks whether they can find success vs. PayPal.

Kount Inc. has announced that the company has received a US patent for its device fingerprinting technology. Kount officials say patent number 7,330,871 "Online Machine Data Collection and Archiving Process," describes a method for identifying a customer computer involved in an online transaction via a merchant website.   » Continue Reading

APACS has announced that more than 25 million UK-issued debit and credit cards have now been registered with MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa – online payment systems that make cards more secure when shopping on the internet. According to APACS, over 1.5 million cards are being registered every month – an increase of 650% compared with two years ago.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced that the number of online stores, catalogs and travel partners offering its payments approach has exceeded the 1,000 mark. According to the company, "the merchants in the network represent top-tier retail, airline and hotel brands offering tens of millions of products to Bill Me Later’s rapidly expanding consumer base."   » Continue Reading

TrialPay has announced reaching two milestones today: supporting 6,000 merchants and acquiring its 12 millionth user. According to the company, "this represents a 20 percent growth in merchant and user numbers in just over a month for the two-year-old payment platform."   » Continue Reading

eBillme has announced closing a $12 million financing round led by Canaan Partners with participation from existing investor Celtic House Venture Partners. Maha Ibrahim, General Partner at Canaan Partners, and Pierre-André Meunier, P.Eng., Partner at Celtic House, are joining eBillme's Board of Directors.   » Continue Reading

41st Parameter has announced the availability of FraudNet 3.0, allowing fraud investigators to be more effective through multiple dynamic fraud investigation tools and hundreds of risk engine rules in one place, including time sensitive fraud alerts. Coupled with 41st Parameters' tagless PCPrint Device ID technology, FraudNet helps companies quickly and efficiently identify fraud and fraud rings across multiple channels, reduce fraud losses and chargebacks and improve productivity.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced that Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation has made Bill Me Later Business available to businesses that purchase Fujitsu LifeBook notebooks and tablet PCs, Stylistic slates and mobile computing accessories on www.shopfujitsu.com and through the company’s 1-800-FUJITSU sales center.   » Continue Reading

Vindicia has announced that it has been selected by Intuit to enable the new Intuit Partner Platform and associated solutions marketplace.

Separately, Vindicia also announced that several gaming publishers (Cryptic, FireSky, Multiverse and Outspark) are using Vindicia's billing and fraud management solutions.   » Continue Reading

Revolution Money and CardinalCommerce have announced that, beginning in October, online merchants will be able to accept RevolutionCard payment cards through Cardinal Centinel, Cardinal's platform that allows merchants to enable multiple payment brands through one installation.   » Continue Reading

Moneybookers and Clickatell have announced a partnership to offer mobile SMS alerts on transactions to over 5 million Moneybookers eWallet customers. According to the companies, "Moneybookers customers can now receive text notifications directly to their cell phone anytime, anywhere, when purchases are completed, goods are mailed or money transfers are wired. This brings an advantage in terms of security, as customers always have an overview of the transfers on the account and can cancel unwanted transactions immediately."   » Continue Reading

During August, PayPal hosted four webinars on various subjects of interest to online ecommerce merchants. If you missed the webinars, online archives of each of the webinars are now available. The topics include: Capturing the Voice of Your Customer to Drive ROI, Using Social Media and Networking to Boost Sales, Building Loyal Customers to Increase Profitability, and Reducing Shopping Cart Abandonment.

Bill Me Later has announced it will host a webinar on Thursday, September 18, at 1 PM EDT where Russ Jones and Allen Weinberg of Glenbrook Partners will provide an in-depth look at how retailers evaluate alternative payments.   » Continue Reading

Today's PayPal webinar, last of the August webinar series, will focus on the topic of reducing shopping card abandonment. Patti Freeman Evans, research director from JupiterResearch, and Lewis Broadnax, director of e-commerce at Lenovo are participating. More info here - register here.

Videos and presentations from the eBay/PayPal Developers Conference held in June in Chicago are available online.

TrialPay has announced the launch of a new Gifts & Gourmet category with the company saying that "top companies from the food industry have enlisted in this new advertising section, marking a milestone for the payment method widely used for digital goods and services."   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Russ Jones recently met with Ken Myles of NACHA to get an update on NACHA's Secure Vault Payments initiative. Read on for Russ' insights and reactions to what he learned.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled "PayPal wants to double its employment in Austin", Kirk Ladendorf writes for the Austin American-Statesman about PayPal's plans to double its current 200 person software development organization in Austin. He writes: "The company is entrusting some of its most important work — software for new payment products, fraud detection and help-desk assistance —to the Austin technical team."

TrialPay has announced that, In less than two years, it now has more than 10 million users with more than 5,000 premier merchants having adopted its unique payment platform.

According to TrialPay, "unlike regular options such as Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Google Checkout and Bill Me Later, TrialPay actually increases a customer's willingness to pay by giving a 2-for-1 with every purchase. In just its second year, TrialPay counts 18 million visitors each month and 40,000 new users every day from around the globe to rival that of other top-tier online payment companies."   » Continue Reading

CyberSource and Trustwave have announced a partnership to provide payment security solutions to Trustwave and CyberSource merchants in the United States and Europe. The solutions "will help merchants streamline compliance validation with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), providing a complete set of payment security services for merchants."   » Continue Reading

PayPal's beginning its series of August Wednesday webinars today (11 AM Pacific) on the topic of "Capturing the voice of your customer to drive ROI." Participating will be Mark McWeeny, Executive Vice President and General Manager, SmartBargains and Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director, Jupiter Research.

PayPal has announced results of a survey finding that "more than half of the parents surveyed said they will wait for sales before buying for their teens this fall. Forty percent will give their teens a budget and let them decide how to spend the money while only eight percent of parents said they will buy their teens whatever they want. In order to help parents and kids find clothing and supplies that fit their budgets, PayPal has launched a back-to-school Web site with the season’s hottest deals and styles.   » Continue Reading

Yesterday, we noted that Amazon Payments had launched a new, fully featured ecommerce checkout service called Checkout by Amazon along with a new, payments-only service called Amazon Simple Pay. In this post, we take a deeper look at Amazon Simple Pay - which enables third-party web sites to simply enable existing Amazon.com customers to pay using their Amazon payment information.   » Continue Reading

Amazon Payments has launched both Checkout by Amazon, a complete ecommerce checkout solution including payments, shipping, sales tax, promotions, etc., and Amazon Simple Pay , a set of payment-only products that allows websites to enable their customers to use their Amazon.com payment information for payments. A comparison chart shows the key differences between Checkout by Amazon, Amazon Simple Pay, and Amazon's Flexible Payment Service.

Bill Me Later has announced a strategic partnership with Universal Air Travel Plan (UATP), the airline-owned corporate travel payment network. The partnership enables airlines to integrate Bill Me Later by utilizing their existing UATP Network for processing Bill Me Later transactions.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced that QVC, one of the largest multimedia retailers in the world, "has added the Bill Me Later alternative payment method to further enhance the shopping experience for its valued customers online, in the call center and via automated phone service."   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Russ Jones will be on hand at this year's Direct Response Forum (DRF) to lead a session on August 12th entitled "What We're Watching in Emerging Payments". Looking beyond the current generation of payment alternatives, Russ will be discussing TrialPay, eBillme, Secure Vault Payments, Amazon Payments, RevolutionCard, eLayaway, PaidByCash, and the Green Dot MoneyPak.

Russ will also be participating in a round table discussion on best practices in recurring payments on August 13th. The DRF 2008 conference is being held in San Diego. The full agenda is available online. If you're going to be at the conference, - he'd love to meet you!

eBay reported second quarter 2008 financial results earlier today - saying that "PayPal had a strong quarter with $602 million in net revenue, an increase of 33% year-over-year. Net total payment volume (TPV) for the quarter was $14.93 billion, an increase of 35% year-over-year. Global active registered accounts increased to 62.6 million, representing 19% year-over-year growth."

44% of PayPal's payments revenue was from international. PayPal's transaction revenue rate was 3.89% - essentially flat from last year - while its transaction loss rate declined from 31 basis points to 27 basis points. PayPal's transaction processing expense rate increased slightly to 1.23%.

Bill Me Later has announced "that to celebrate its launch on Amazon.com, customers that pay with Bill Me Later will receive $10 off qualifying Amazon.com purchases of $50 or more. The offer is available through July 21, 2008."   » Continue Reading

41st Parameter has announced that it has been selected by Continental Airlines "to help detect and prevent Card-Not-Present (CNP) fraud in its online sales channels. The airline will employ 41st Parameter’s FraudNet to help it identify legitimate versus suspect website transactions on a global basis, as well as to prevent fraudulent account access, enabling the airline to protect sensitive customer data."   » Continue Reading

eCommerce and mobile commerce solution provider, Mpayy, Inc. has announced that it has closed its Series B financing led by US Bancorp with participation from a number of private investors.   » Continue Reading

As we noticed last week, Amazon.com is now supporting Bill Me Later for payments. This morning both companies officially announced that "millions of Amazon.com customers will be able to use Bill Me Later’s next-generation payments service to pay for their purchases instantly online without using a credit card."   » Continue Reading

Last December, Bill Me Later announced that Amazon.com would be accepting Bill Me Later payments and that Amazon had made an equity investment in the company. Amazon.com now is accepting Bill Me Later - details here. Amazon.com is also now a featured store on the Bill Me Later home page - ironically, right next to its bookstore rival Borders.com.

Ina Steiner writes for AuctionBytes that eBay has cancelled plans to go to a PayPal-only marketplace in Australia following an inquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that would have likely resulted in a ruling preventing eBay from doing so.

eBay Australia continues to require that all sellers offer PayPal for payment - but it won't be requiring removal of other payment methods. In a statement to the eBay community, eBay said "eBay regrets any uncertainty that this process has caused among the Community and believe that today’s decision will remove further doubt."

ID Analytics has announced the availability of ID Analytics for Authentication - calling it "a network based authentication solution that enables organizations to validate customer identities during online and call center interactions. ID Analytics for Authentication accurately separates legitimate and suspicious identities while reducing customer abandonment rates and lowering the cost of an authentication session by up to 50 percent."   » Continue Reading

Fears about identity theft and financial fraud are top global concerns for consumers, according to the latest results of the Unisys Security Index. Identity theft is the primary security concern cited among respondents in nine out of 14 countries, while misuse of credit or debit card information ranks as the first or second greatest fear in 12 out of the 14 countries. Interestingly, the survey found an apparent lack of concern about using the Internet to shop, bank and email. According to Unisys, the data indicates that concern about Internet security has taken a back seat to other areas studied, such as issues related to financial well-being and the protection against bank card fraud.   » Continue Reading

Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank has announced that it has implemented 3D Secure on its BillPay websites. "Better known to the public as “Verified by Visa” and “MasterCard SecureCode”, 3D Secure is designed to protect cardholders against unauthorised use of their debit or credit cards online."   » Continue Reading

Overstock.com has announced it is now giving shoppers the ability to shop and pay later with the promotional financing service, PayPal Pay Later. "The PayPal Pay Later service gives Overstock.com customers a credit account with flexible financing options - even if a buyer doesn't have a PayPal account. As part of the introductory financing promotion, customers can defer payments on purchases for 90 days, allowing consumers to buy what they really want on Overstock.com and plan their payments in a way that best fits their budgets."   » Continue Reading

Wirecard and Experian have announced "a strategic alliance to create a unique product to provide risk management support to the rapidly growing European Internet payment market. The new product, hosted by Wirecard, gives clients access to sophisticated analytics, modelling and simulation technology at the point at which they make decisions on their customers. Fully integrated into Wirecard’s payment platform, the new service will help clients to increase the speed and quality of their decision-making during order acceptance and reduce their exposure to Internet fraud."   » Continue Reading

Blockbuster has announced it is now accepting PayPal as a way to make purchases on the company's web site http://www.blockbuster.com. "To celebrate the launch of PayPal, Blockbuster is offering PayPal customers $10 cash back for signing up for a new online rental subscription at blockbuster.com. To take advantage of the cash back offer, PayPal customers should visit http://www.blockbuster.com/paypal."   » Continue Reading

PayPal, calling itself "the brand that pioneered a safer, easier way for people to pay and get paid online," has announced the kick off of its 10th anniversary celebration with a retrospective web site and the release of a specially commissioned survey that shows 80 percent of U.S. online shoppers say the Internet has made their lives easier. PayPal says that every second it processes some US $2,000 in payments with PayPal payments representing about 9 percent of e-commerce globally and 12 percent in the U.S.   » Continue Reading

eBay and PayPal have announced "improved protections for buyers and sellers on eBay.com, in time for this year's holiday shopping season. For the first time, buyers who pay with PayPal will be protected on eligible transactions for 100 percent of an item's purchase price, with no cap on coverage. In addition, all U.S. eBay sellers will receive improved seller protection for eligible transactions when they get paid with PayPal." PayPal's increased buyer and seller protections will take effect this Fall.   » Continue Reading

NACHA has announced that Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) will offer NACHA’s Secure Vault Payments solution to its clients. FIS will offer Secure Vault Payments to current clients as well as financial institutions without an existing relationship with FIS.   » Continue Reading

PayPal has announced a new Developer Central portal saying it is "designed to help developers support growing merchant demand for online payments." PayPal also introduced new application programming interfaces (APIs) to give merchants more flexibility to manage their customer transactions.   » Continue Reading

Dave Birch and Chris Skinner both write about payments fraud on their blogs. Chris reviews the presentations (available online) from the recent Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conference on Payments Fraud and concludes that the fraudsters are smart and likely to always be one step ahead. Dave asks why the banks have "continued to bend, batter and patch up the credit card systems to force them into environments for which they were never designed."

Stephen Hutcheon writes for the Sydney Morning Herald that eBay intends to "challenge the Australian competition watchdog's ruling to block a plan to force its users onto a PayPal-only payments system." Yesterday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced a draft notice proposing to prevent eBay from implementing a PayPal-only policy in Australia.

Javien has announced that Javien Micropay now helps merchants meet Visa’s new guidelines for online micropayment transactions of Visa credit, debit or prepaid cards. Additionally, Javien says Micropay provides an auditable, provable method of managing online micropayment aggregations that conforms to Visa’s new rules.   » Continue Reading

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has announced is has issued a draft notice proposing to revoke a notification by eBay International on 11 April 2008. Under the notification, eBay proposes to mandate the use of PayPal for almost all transactions on the eBay site.   » Continue Reading

Phil Windley is reporting on his Technometria blog from this week's Internet Retailing conference in Chicago. His first post on the conference reviewed the keynote address by Mike Boylston from JC Penney. His second post reviews the talk by Robert Antall, CEO, Lake West Group, on the new level of competitiveness in e-retailing. Digital Transactions is also reporting from the conference.

Bill Me Later and ShoeMall.com have announced they have partnered to offer ShoeMall customers a more flexible way to pay online without the use of their credit cards. "   » Continue Reading

Amazon.com has made an equity investment in The Talk Market, "a user-generated TV shopping platform that allows businesses to create broadcast-quality product presentations and gives consumers an entertaining shopping experience."

In a press release, the two companies noted that "Integrated payment processing is provided by Amazon Web Services Flexible Payment Service (Amazon FPS). Using Amazon FPS, merchants at the Talk Market get free Amazon Payments Business accounts to process credit cards and tens of millions of Amazon customers can purchase anything on The Talk Market with the credit cards they have on file with Amazon."   » Continue Reading

Google has announced that over 50 Google Checkout stores will be offering savings of $10 off purchases of $60 or more to buyers using Google Checkout through June 23rd.

CyberSource has published a new "Insider's Guide to ePayment Management" that "details 30 ePayment management tactics leading online merchants are using to improve business results."   » Continue Reading

Santa Clara, California-based Accertify, a provider of fraud prevention solutions to online retailers, has announced that it has received funding from Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization.   » Continue Reading

Bill Me Later has announced that Borders has added its alternative payment functionality to its newly launched e-commerce site at Borders.com. "With Bill Me Later, Borders shoppers will be able to add to their book, movie and music collections online and via phone without sharing their credit card information." Borders.com is also offering customers no payments for 90 days on purchases of $99 or more with Bill Me Later.   » Continue Reading

A new Cisco study concludes that "mobile devices represent a major growth opportunity for the retail industry by providing a new purchasing channel for consumers. The company's third annual e-commerce study indicates that mobile devices are quickly joining physical stores, websites and catalogs as an important retail channel."   » Continue Reading

Don Davis writes for Internet Retailer about how ecommerce merchants can reduce payments acceptance costs.

"To get the best deal, retailers must be prepared to go shopping among the many processors—or transaction acquirers in payments lingo—vying for their business, and to examine every rate and fee in the contract," says Allen Weinberg of payments consulting firm Glenbrook Partners.

“The guiding principle is that everything is negotiable,” Weinberg says. “But it’s important to keep in mind that every acquirer has a profitability target they feel they must meet. If you win on a couple of points, they will likely try to make it up in another area.”

The Direct Response Forum (DRF), a trade association for payments professionals in the direct response industry, has announced the full agenda of educational sessions that will be offered at its annual meeting on August 11th, 12th and 13th at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel.   » Continue Reading

The UK mobile payment initiative payforIT has announced it is expanding onto the World Wide Web with the help of mobile interactive specialist Dialogue Communications. The payforIT payment mechanism will offer shoppers an online payment alternative and enable ecommerce merchants to reach new customers.   » Continue Reading

PayPal has announced results of a survey conducted with comScore that found that unexpectedly high shipping fees are the number one reason consumers abandon online purchases. According to PayPal, "checkout abandonment is a significant challenge for online merchants, with an estimated two out of every three consumers failing to pay for items they put in their shopping carts."   » Continue Reading

Merchant e-Solutions has announced that it is "adding Payer Authentication security programs to its e-Commerce service offering. Enhanced e-Commerce services are delivered through the integration of CardinalCommerce's Centinel system with the MeS Payment Network and include support for Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode, as well as alternative payment brands like Bill Me Later."   » Continue Reading

Ina Steiner notes on AuctionBytes that eBay Australia has filed its response to the many submissions received by the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) inquiry about eBay Australia's new PayPal-only policy slated to go into effect next month. More details about the inquiry and all of the submissions are available on the ACCC web site.

Noa Parag of Globes Online interviews PayPal CEO Scott Thompson during a recent visit to Israel - including discussing PayPal's recent acquisition of Fraud Sciences Ltd. Thompson says: "Most consumers still pay offline, like in restaurants or stores. But I have no doubt that in future all these businesses will be connected to the Internet and then, virtually all payments will be made online. Total online payments will jump twenty fold."

Calling it "The Search That Pays You Back", Microsoft later this morning is introducing a new cashback awards feature on its Live Search web site.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg and Jim Salters are attending this week's Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas. Here's Allen's second report from today's sessions including his notes on the panel he chaired this afternoon titled “Payments aren’t about Payments Anymore”.

TrialPay has announced it is partnering with FreshGames to give away ZenGems, Cubis 2 and the Cubis 2 Expansion Pack for free. Using TrialPay, players can get FreshGames’ most popular titles free for a limited time by trying or buying an offer from blue-chip advertisers.   » Continue Reading

Crutchfield has announced that customers who shop online or through their call center can now choose to pay securely with cash using eBillme, an alternative payment option which brings online banking to the eCommerce checkout.   » Continue Reading

Apple Vacations has announced that it will add the Secure Vault Payments (SVP) as an additional payment option for online customers. The Automated Clearing House (ACH)-based Internet payments network allows consumers to conduct e-commerce and bill payment transactions without sharing personal account information. SVP will be available to Apple Vacations' customers this summer.   » Continue Reading

Mobilians International has announced commercial availability of its phone-based payment service on NHN USA’s ijji.com online gaming website. With Mobilians’ PhoneBill service, NHN USA’s customers now can purchase ijji.com “G-Coins” in multiple increments by charging them to their home phone bill.   » Continue Reading

PayPal has announced that its credit offering - PayPal Pay Later - is now available for payments on eBay.com . "Starting today, eBay buyers in the United States can take advantage of Pay Later’s financing offer of no payments for 90 days for qualifying purchases between $50 and $199."   » Continue Reading

Reminder: eBillme has announced a webinar this Wednesday, May 14, where Russ Jones of Glenbrook Partners will provide an in-depth look at the retailer integration process for several alternative payment options including: Bill Me Later, eBillme, Google Checkout, and PayPal. Registration for the webinar is available online.

AuctionByte's Ina Steiner interviews Prem Ramaswami, Associate Product Manager for Google Checkout, for an update on Google's payment service. Both a podcast and a transcript of the interview are available. Ramaswami says: "We want to create the fastest, safest and most convenient shopping method for our buyers to use, and we want to increase ecommerce, because we strongly believe that increasing ecommerce increases the size of the pie for everybody out there."

Ina Steiner writes for AuctionBytes.com about new developments as eBay moves forward with plans to mandate PayPal on sellers in Australia. She cites several submissions to the inquiry into the practice being conducted by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Jupiter's Ed Kountz blogs about alternative online payments ((PayPal, BillMeLater, Google Checkout and eBillMe).

He writes: "A new JupiterResearch report indicates that consumers who are turning to alternative online payments are doing so for two primary reasons. The first is security -- in the form of not having to enter card information online. The second, convenience, is related—as anyone who has ever wanted to make a purchase on a PC upstairs, using a credit card located in a wallet or purse a floor or two away has found." Which do you think is most important for consumer adoption: convenience or security?

Ed's new blog is one of many payments and banking blogs that we've recently collected onto our "Other Blogs" page. On one page there you can see the titles of the latest posts on over 30 blogs.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has made comments to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's inquiry into eBay's recent announcement that it would mandate the use of PayPal for payments on eBay's Australian site. The RBA comments: 'The proposed conduct by eBay is to mandate the use of PayPal for almost all transactions on the eBay site. This raises three potential issues in relation to the payments system. The first is that it could limit the ability of new on-line payment systems to become established and for alternative systems to compete in the on-line payments space. The second is that it could restrict merchants' ability to negotiate lower fees. And the third is that it restricts choice for consumers.' More in the RBA's full submission. Also, CNN reports on eBay's move.

Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes.com writes about her interview with Scott Thompson, PayPal CEO. A podcast of the interview is available. She writes: 'Thompson talked about the competitive landscape in online payments and PayPal's focus in the next 12 - 24 months. He also shares his thoughts on eBay's Safe Payments policy, including what the PayPal-only policy on eBay Australia means for the rest of the world.'

NACHA has announced that Secure Vault Payments is now a live alternative payment option. The ACH-based Internet payments network allows consumers to conduct e-commerce and bill payment transactions without sharing personal account information.   » Continue Reading

eBillme has announced it will host a webinar on Wednesday, May 14, where Russ Jones of Glenbrook Partners will provide an in-depth look at the retailer integration process for several alternative payment options including: Bill Me Later, eBillme, Google Checkout, and PayPal.   » Continue Reading

CyberSource and China-based PayEase Technology Ltd. have announced a collaboration to facilitate merchants’ entry into the China market. With the PayEase/CyberSource solution, merchants gain support for both Chinese credit cards as well as debit cards from over 20 key banks.   » Continue Reading

Keith Regan looks at Bill Me Later in a post on eCommerceTimes.com saying that "credit card-free alternative Bill Me Later has proven that merchants and consumers alike are hungry for alternatives."

Bill Me Later has announced that Journeys.com, a specialty retailer of footwear and accessories, has launched Bill Me Later on its web site. With the Bill Me Later payment service, consumers can conveniently and securely make online purchases without a credit card. Journeys.com is also extending the additional convenience and flexibility of no payments for 90 days to its customers.   » Continue Reading

Marianne Crowe, Vice President, Emerging Payments Research Group, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, gave a presentation last week titled "Emerging Payments - The Changing Landscape" to the Maine Association of Community Banks and to the New Hampshire Community Bankers Association. Crowe's presentation discusses the growth in debit card payments, the emergence (and potential threats to banks) of decoupled debit cards, prepaid cards for the unbanked, and the use of the Internet for bill payment, ecommerce purchases, and person-to-person or account-to-account money transfers. She also discusses contactless payments and mobile banking.

eBay reported first quarter 2008 financial results earlier today - saying that 'PayPal had a strong quarter with $582 million in net revenue, an increase of 32% year-over-year. Net total payment volume (TPV) for the quarter was $14.42 billion, an increase of 34% year-over-year. Growth in global active accounts increased to 60.2 million, representing 17% year-over-year growth.'   » Continue Reading

In a press release, Orbiscom has announced that 'millions of consumers are taking control over risks from identity theft and online fraud with a free security service from Orbiscom. The service is available from credit card and online payment issuers and generates disposable numbers linked to a real account that can only be used within constraints specified by the card holder. As a result, merchants and unauthorized persons are prevented from seeing direct financial details in transactions that do not require the physical card, like online or by phone.'   » Continue Reading

CyberSource has announced that its Authorize.Net small business solution has launched Simple Checkout allowing online merchants to create easy-to-implement 'Buy Now' and 'Donate' buttons. 'Simple Checkout was designed specifically for organizations that rely on donations and specialty merchants that typically sell one item per order.'   » Continue Reading

Shop.org has released The State of Retailing Online 2008, its 11th annual study conducted by Forrester Research of 125 retailers. The study found that 'online retail will continue to be a bright spot in the industry with retail sales rising 17 percent this year to $204 billion. Apparel ($26.6 billion), computers ($23.9 billion), and autos ($19.3 billion) will be the largest three sales categories.'   » Continue Reading

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has published the 2007 Internet Crime Report . For the year, IC3 received 206,884 complaints of crimes perpetrated over the Internet during 2007. Of the complaints received, more than 90,000 were referred to law enforcement around the nation, amounting to nearly $240 million in reported losses. This represents a $40 million increase in reported losses from complaints referred to law enforcement in 2006.   » Continue Reading

The Direct Response Forum (DRF), a trade association for payments professionals in the direct response marketing industry, has announced that it has begun accepting registrations for its 19th Annual Forum to be held in San Diego, Monday August 11 through Wednesday August 13.   » Continue Reading

JetBlue Airways has announced that customers booking at www.jetblue.com now have the option to purchase flights using PayPal.   » Continue Reading

Amazon.com has launched Amazon TextBuyIt, a new service that lets customers use text messages to find and buy products sold on Amazon.com. 'With the addition of TextBuyIt to Amazon's existing mobile offering, including its mobile site and mobile iPhone site, customers can now shop, compare prices, and buy from Amazon.com virtually anywhere they are, with any mobile device, using either text messages or their mobile device's web browser.'   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Making Appointments for Doctor or Dinner', Bob Tedeschi writes for his weekly E-Commerce Report in the New York Times about new services that enable small businesses and service providers to allow customers to schedule their services online. HourTown, one of the new breed of online calendar services that Tedeschi discusses in his article, was started by a good friend of ours, Ryan Donahue.

CompUSA has announced that it is now accepting PayPal as a way to pay for purchases made on the CompUSA.com website. "CompUSA is the latest in the Systemax family of brands to offer PayPal. PayPal is currently accepted in North America at TigerDirect.com, TigerDirect.ca and now CompUSA." More from Mary Anne Gillespie on The PayPal Blog.   » Continue Reading

Nearly 90 percent of Americans say they feel safe online despite the rising tide of spyware, phishing and other badware threatening Internet users, according to a new poll sponsored by StopBadware.org, a consumer protection initiative aimed at combating dangerous software.   »