On the web:

• Connect your loyalty programs, offers and more to Google Wallet with the Wallet Objects API - "Save anything to Google Wallet: Integrate your loyalty programs, offers and more into Google Wallet. Users can save these items directly to their Google Wallet for easy use."
• Fast and easy checkout for Android apps selling physical goods and services - Google Commerce - "...our new Google Wallet Instant Buy Android API … makes buying in native Android apps fast and easy."
• Google Is Rebooting Its Troubled Digital Wallet On The Web - ReadWrite - "Google has long aimed to become a payments player. It knows that many of its searches drive people to e-commerce sites where they conduct transactions. …"
• The Feds Are Cracking Down On Mt. Gox (Not On Bitcoin) - Forbes.com - "…the Department of Homeland Security has some issues with how Mt. Gox is running its American operations."
• Give me that old bitcoin religion - PandoDaily - "To engender this trust, and tamp down the threat of counterfeiting, it relies on an ingenious combination of transparency and anonymity."
• Surprise! Prepaid debit cards actually a good deal for consumers Red Tape Chronicles - "Prepaid debit cards, long synonymous with frustrating or even exploitative fees, are suddenly a pretty good deal."
• Mobile Payments Startup ZooZ Debuts In-Ad Payments (Yes, “Ad” Not “App”) - TechCrunch - "With in-ad payments, mobile users will be able checkout by tapping once on a visible banner ad within a mobile app…"
• Visa concessions on card fees: a step in the right direction - EuroCommerce - "EuroCommerce will continue to campaign for a regulation which removes excessive interchange fees, not only cross-border but also on all domestic markets."
• Payleven and MICROS spawn a cloud-based point-of-sale system with Chip & PIN support - The Next Web - "The cloud-based POS system works via 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi and comes with integrated Chip & PIN card payments functionality, as well as automatic sales and card history transactions reconciliation."
• UK's Faster Payments is five years old - Financial Services Club Blog - "The UK's Faster Payments Service (FPS) celebrated its fifth birthday on 8th May."
• Google Wallet’s high turnover - Mobile World Live - "Google has been losing its payments executives at a surprising rate since its launch in the autumn of 2011."

On the wires:

• Federal Court Reinstates $203 Million Judgment Against Wells Fargo For Misleading Consumers On Posting Of Debit-Card Purchases That Resulted In Unexpected Overdraft Fees - "The case before Judge Alsup was brought on behalf of California Wells Fargo customers who, from November 15, 2004 to June 30, 2008, incurred overdraft fees on debit card transactions as a result of the bank's practice of sequencing transactions from highest to lowest."
• Visa Cuts Europe’s Swipe Fees But Continues to Stiff U.S. Merchants & Consumers - Merchants Payments Coalition - "U.S. merchants and consumers pay the highest fees in the world to credit card companies and banks to swipe their cards because of unfair price-fixing within the industry."
• Monitise Launches MPOS Payment Service - "The new white-labelled mobile payment service helps banks, mobile operators and acquirers offer their business customers the ability to accept card payments on a mobile device..."
• CHARGE Anywhere Launches EMV MPOS Solution at BlackBerry Live - "In integrating a Bluetooth enabled EMV/Chip & PIN smart card reader with a BlackBerry smart phone, CHARGE Anywhere, continues to lead the way in providing secure, innovative payment solutions"
• Vantiv and NCR to Bring Powerful Mobile Point-of-Sale Solutions to Small Businesses - "The multi-year agreement will focus on developing exclusive new solutions and expanding both companies’ innovative technology platforms to deliver personalized customer experiences that help smaller merchants compete more effectively against larger competitors."
• Tyfone Connected Smart Card Solution Fixes Cyber Security and Biometric Vulnerabilities - "Tyfone’s CSC solution operates much like the traditional plastic smart card systems already in widespread use, but has a much smaller physical footprint and uniquely has the ability to connect to any mobile device, tablet or PC."
• New C-SAM Applet Development and Testing Services Enable Rapid Rollouts of NFC-Enabled Mobile Commerce Products and Services
• APWG Report: Mobile Device Crimeware Evolves into Global Criminal Marketplace in Response to Mobile Payment and Banking Expansion - "The sprawling mobile devices marketplace has spawned an industrialized mobile financial fraud plexus that today drives increasingly sophisticated criminal technical innovation to exploit the mobile devices explosion"

On Twitter:

For bitcoin to make it it needs to be banned by a few governments and critiqued by policy makers. Otherwise it will fade. #Antifragile.

— Nassim N. Taleb (@nntaleb) May 15, 2013

5 reasons the financial industry is ripe for disruption smrt.io/10N3isR > drawn from @coreemc @cfsinnovation report on #underbanked

— Arjan Schutte (@arjanschutte) May 15, 2013

On the web:

• What to watch as the bitcoin drama develops - PandoDaily - "If the promises of bitcoin could ever be unlocked – perhaps one of the biggest ifs in the tech world today – it’s about as big of a venture-style opportunity as you could imagine."
• Dept. of Homeland Security freezes accounts between Dwolla and bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox - PandoDaily - "…the Department of Homeland Security served the Dwolla mobile payment service with a court order requiring it to immediately cease all account activities with the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange."
• Square And PayPal Push The iPad-ification Of America's Small Businesses - ReadWrite - "Square, PayPal, and Groupon all made news today with the common goal of getting small businesses to junk their cash registers for Internet-connected devices…"
• Google Ventures invests in OpenCoin, the firm behind Bitcoin exchange Ripple - GigaOm
• Why Prepaid Cards Appeal to Hackers - Bank Technology News - "…overall, prepaid cards are as safe as any other payment instrument available to consumers..."
• Visa Europe Offers to Cap Credit-Card Fees to End EU Probe - Bloomberg - "…this will allow cheaper use of cards that are a payment system used in almost half of our total payments in the EU…"
• Compass Plus survey reveals industry expectations for contactless are overambitious - Bob's Guide - "Actively tracking the difference in opinion between industry experts and the general public has been an interesting experiment..."
• Lightspeed is anchoring a Bitcoin focused fund - Lightspeed Venture Partners - "It’s no secret that that I see the opportunity for Bitcoin to disrupt multi-billion-dollar markets and dramatically cut transaction costs for people around the world."
• Liberty City Ventures Launches $15 Million Fund To Invest In Bitcoin And Other Digital Currency Startups - TechCrunch - "It seems like everyone is talking about Bitcoin these days."
• Consumers, payments and unknown knowns - Tomorrow's Transactions Blog - "It’s hard in fact for non-industry ‘civilians’ to know what they want from a technology they barely understand. Furthermore, payments is boring – consumers don’t want to think about it."

On the wires:

• Vantiv to Bring Next Generation Point-of-Sale Redemption Technology to the U.S. Market with Visa Offers Platform - "Vantiv is the first U.S. acquirer to announce their intent to offer this technology to clients across the country..."
• TapBase Introduces NFC-Less Proximity Payments - "We’re very pleased to offer merchants and consumers the ability to perform proximity or ‘contactless’ transactions with their iPads and iPhones…"
• Square reinvents the register with Square Stand - "Square Stand gives merchants a remarkable new way to manage and grow their business, all for the price of a cash register."
• Leaf Unveils Second Generation of its Built-for-Business Tablet - "Leaf is on a mission to turn standard point of sale into point of smart interactions for small businesses…"
• FIS Study Shows Significant Revenue Opportunity for Large and Mid-tier Financial Institutions from Real-time Payments Offerings - "Offering real-time payments can help consumers better manage their financial lives, offer a differentiated banking experience and provide additional revenue streams for financial institutions..." - Report available here
• eftpos Announces Contract to Enable Mobile Payment Trials - "eftpos today announced it would begin mobile payments trials with selected Australian retailers in the next few months."
• Boku Partners with Swisscom to Offer Mobile Payments - "This agreement will bring direct-to-bill mobile operator billing as a payment option to more than 6 million customers, covering more than 60% of Switzerland’s mobile market."

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:

• Highlights from a Conference on Technology and Payments - Portals and Rails
• The Need For Mobile Money Spawns A Startup Ecosystem Across Africa - TechCrunch
• EU Takes Belgium to Court Over Electronic Money Providers - WSJ.com

On the wires:

• Chase Customers Can Get Debit Cards Instantly in Branches
• Amazon Makes It Simple for Unity Developers to Add In-App Purchasing to Their Games
• Fuel Rewards Network Launch Helps Dallas-Fort Worth Consumers Save at the Pump
• Payza Payment Gateway Licensed for Inbound Foreign Remittances in Bangladesh
• Transact24 Moves Its Prepaid Card Portfolio to CashFlows to Provide Global Issuing Services
• Blackhawk Network to Offer Univision MasterCard Prepaid Card at Select Retailers

Debit cards continue to gain global market share from credit cards, and the use of electronic and mobile payments continues to show exponential growth concludes the World Payments Report 2012 released by Capgemini, RBS, and Efma.

“Debit card transactions continue to take market share from other types of payment methods because they easily allow people to bypass the use of cash,” said Kevin Brown, Global Head, Transaction Services Product, International Banking, RBS. “As more and more consumers move to mobile and other electronic payments, we’ll continue to see the exponential growth of innovative payment solutions.”

The World Payments Report 2012 also highlights that Brazil now the third largest non-cash market in the world after the US and the Eurozone.

MasterCard announced that is has partnered with CQR Payment Solutions to Launch the MasterCard Reload Service for Prepaid in Europe. Cardholders will be able to load cash at a wide variety of merchant locations across Europe via a direct card reload or through a Ukash voucher, which can then be used to reload the card online. The rePower voucher launch will be in November this year.

On the web:

• Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange Win EU Thumbs-Up For Mobile Wallet Scheme - ZDNet
• How Popular are Mobile Payments? - SurveyMonkey Blog

On the wires:

• Seamless Launches Easy Transfer To All Bank Accounts In Sweden
• Invapay Chooses Earthport As A Global Payments Provider For Procure-And-Pay Solution
• Treasury Strategies Finds Billers’ Overall Cost to Accept Card Payments Less Than Other Payment Types
• FIS Drives 150% Growth in Mobile Clients as Bank Customers Go Mobile in Record Numbers
• Wright Express to Acquire Fleet One

On the web:

• College Debit Cards: Hidden Costs Of Convenience - NBC News
• ‘European Square’ iZettle Now Works With Android; Visa Europe Dispute Drags On - TechCrunch
• Google To Sponsor Free Wi-Fi Experiment To Drive Google Offers Sign Ups - GigaOM
• National Payment Preference by Card Type - Litle & Co. Blog

On the wires:

• Visa and IDB Partnership Brings Financial Inclusion to Complexo do Alemão in Brazil
• PAYBOX from VeriFone’s Point Group Drives Mobile Orders to McDonald’s in France
• Capario Launches Integrated Solution to Streamline Patient Payment Processing

Reuters is reporting that "Mastercard lost a challenge to an EU ban on its cross-border card fees in a ruling that puts rival Visa Europe squarely in the sights of European regulators over its charges." MasterCard has issued a statement to the effect that the court's decision will "ultimately make payments more expensive for consumers".

First Data has announced that its binding corporate rules for data privacy have been authorized by the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office, and are now approved by the data protection authorities in 18 European Union member states.

“Data privacy is fundamental to the success of our business, and we’re deeply committed to protecting the information entrusted to us by our clients and employees alike. We have high standards for data privacy, and this recognition from exacting European regulators demonstrates our global leadership in data protection compliance,” said First Data Chief Executive Officer Jonathan J. Judge.

On the wires:

• Axioma Launches Enhanced Global and Regional Risk Models
• Electronic Payment Exchange and Sprint Extend Relationship through Co-Marketing Deal
• Beanstream Introduces New Global Transaction Product Suite Allowing Merchants to Accept Payments From Around the World
• Global Payments Canada Teams with Precidia for Semi-Integrated EMV Solution for ECRs
• SEGA Chooses PlaySpan for Monetization of MLB Manager Online
• Contis Group Acquires GTP Financial Services for European Prepaid Push

On the web:

• New York Times: How to Avoid Credit Card Problems Abroad - Practical Traveler
• Dow Jones: Verifone Looks To Advances In Mobile Payment
• China Daily: PayPal to End Partnership with Alibaba
• New York Times: New Russian ATM’s Are Built to Detect Lies
• ComputerWorld: MasterCard Warns Skimming Hole Will Be Open For Years

SponsorPay, a virtual currency monetization platform in Europe, has announced that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Hasso Plattner Ventures. Team Europe Ventures also participated in this round. The Berlin-based company says it will use the investment to accelerate growth in international markets and further expand its leadership role in Europe. READ MORE »

ATM transaction flows under the Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS), which unites European debit card schemes, have increased thanks to Consorzio Bancomat and Zentraler Kreditausschuss opening up the Italian and German processing gateways, SIA-SSB and CardProcess, under the EAPS framework to support their agreement to allow each other’s cardholders to withdraw cash from their respective ATM networks. READ MORE »

Visa Europe has announced that will cap its weighted average intra-regional MIF for immediate debit transactions at 20 basis points (0.2%) for four years. The same cap will apply to domestic immediate debit rates that defaulted to the intra-regional MIF rate before 10 March 2009 and continue to do so, and to domestic immediate debit rates set directly by Visa Europe. Visa Europe noted that "many of these countries have their own arrangements for setting domestic interchange or have few immediate debit card transactions, therefore the overall impact is limited." READ MORE »

Cardis Enterprises International has announced the European introduction of a low value payment solution with "a unique business model that provides a platform to drive cash replacement of everyday small payments."

Cardis says that its solution "offers a paradigm shift to the payment cards business model by introducing end-to-end transaction aggregation - an industry first. This allows for reduction of the per transaction cost by enabling many individual low-value payment transactions to be aggregated into a single (higher value) debit card transaction, without the need for per transaction reconciliation (or shadow accounting), posting or processing at any point in the value chain." READ MORE »

The European Payments Council (EPC), the coordination and decision-making body of the European payments industry, has published its EPC Annual Report 2009. "The EPC delivers the payment schemes and frameworks necessary to create the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). SEPA is an EU integration initiative in the area of payments designed to realise the completion of the EU internal market and monetary union. SEPA is currently defined as consisting of the EU 27 Member States plus Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Monaco. The EPC Annual Report 2009 highlights further substantial progress achieved in the following areas covered by the EPC work programme." READ MORE »

Visa Europe has published a new white paper titled "The Future of Everyday Payments in Europe - Who Cares?".

From the introduction: "Our overriding contention is that, to enable and accelerate further development everyday payments, more innovation will be essential. But we use the term “innovation” in its broadest sense. In some instances a big, sweeping change may be necessary. More often, a small tweak or a minor calibration can pay huge dividends."

An updated version of "Inside Fraud" published by Payments, Cards and Mobile and sponsored by Visa Europe is now available online.

The report finds significant variations in losses between France, Netherlands, Spain and UK with losses much higher on internet and international transactions. The report suggests there is an "urgent need to complete roll-out of EMV and continue implementation of online security measures."

Taking Visa Europe’s figures as a barometer for the region as a whole, card fraud losses fell from 0.07% (7 basis points) of card turnover in 2007 to 0.06% in 2008. But comparing national figures for France, Spain, Netherlands and the UK, losses ranged from fewer than 3 basis points of card turnover in Spain to 10 basis points in the UK.

Further, the picture is not static. In Holland, which historically had one of the lowest levels of card fraud in Europe, the loss rate has risen almost threefold during the last four years. With Dutch debit card transactions still 100% based on magnetic-stripe cards, losses continue to rise due to skimming. In contrast, UK figures for first half of 2009 show total card fraud losses down 23% to £232.8 million.

You can download the full report here.

On November 2, the European Payments Council (EPC) launches the SEPA Core Direct Debit Scheme and the SEPA Business to Business Direct Debit Scheme. The SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) Schemes enable bank customers – for the first time ever - to make and receive direct debits within and across 32 European countries collectively known as the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). READ MORE »

The European Payments Council (EPC), the coordination and decision-making body of the European banking industry in relation to payments, has announced that the SEPA Core Direct Debit Scheme and the SEPA Business to Business Direct Debit Scheme will launch on 2 November 2009. READ MORE »

PULSE, the Discover Financial Services business unit responsible for expanding global cash access for the company, has signed a long-term ATM acquiring agreement with TRIONIS, a European interbank processing network. TRIONIS is jointly owned by retail banks from nine European countries, the European Savings Banks Group, and First Data. READ MORE »

Ukash has announced that it is partnering with MasterCard and will help facilitate the launch of the MasterCard rePower service in Europe - a service that allows consumers to load cash onto their MasterCard and Maestro prepaid cards at Point-of-Sale (POS) locations. READ MORE »

EuroCommerce, an association of European retailers, has announced that it is lodging a new complaint against Visa Europe. In a press release, EuroCommerce said that "the fees, set by Visa and its member banks and imposed on retailers, constitute an infringement of European competition law. It was the imposition of exactly such fees which led the European Commission to rule against MasterCard in December 2007. EuroCommerce calls for the same robust decision against Visa." READ MORE »

In a press release today, the European Commission said it "can confirm that it has sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to Visa on 3rd April 2009. The Commission's preliminary view is that the multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) set directly by Visa restrict competition between banks for accepting consumer payment cards without benefiting consumers by contributing to technical and economic progress."

MasterCard Europe has announced that it had reached an understanding with the European Commission on interim interchange fees for cross-border consumer payments within the European Economic Area (EEA). New interchange fees will be set for these transactions while the company pursues its appeal of the Commission’s December 2007 decision regarding interchange. MasterCard Europe had temporarily reduced these fees to zero in June 2008 in order to ensure its conformity with the decision. READ MORE »

ChronoPay and Payvision have announced they have signed a contract forming strategic partnership. Through the partnership with Payvision, ChronoPay expands its presence in European countries offering eCommerce merchants more flexible, secure and multi-currency payment solutions - enabling Chronopay merchants to increase their online transaction volumes. READ MORE »

Diners Club International, a business unit of Discover Financial Services, in conjunction with Discover, and SIX Multipay, a leading Swiss-based payment services provider, have announced that they have signed a long-term merchant acquiring agreement. This is the first multi-country, acquirer agreement to further European acceptance of Diners Club and Discover Network cards. READ MORE »

Deutsche Card Services, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, has published the Pago Retail Report 2008. Among its findings: "In European online retailing, risks of non-payment are much lower for women than for men. This is indicated by a lower chargeback ratio, which describes the share of credit card transactions which had to be charged back after the cardholder rejected the transaction. At roughly 0.10%, female consumers' non-payment ratio for online purchases paid for by credit card is only half that of male customers (0.19%). One year before the opposite was true. " READ MORE »

First Data and American Express have announced a new merchant services agreement in Poland where First Data will become the exclusive merchant acquirer and merchant processor for American Express Card transactions in Poland. READ MORE »

The CNP Payment Forum (previously titled DRF EU) has announced its 6th annual conference to be held in Barcelona on May 11-13, 2009. READ MORE »