On the web:

• Google Copies Amazon's Playbook - Wall St. Journal - "Google's moves to copy Amazon underscore how the tech companies are expanding into each other's areas…"
• East Grand Rapids native Ryan McInerney named president of Visa Inc. - MLive - "McInerney, a 1993 graduate of East Grand Rapids High School, had been chief executive of consumer banking at JP Morgan Chase …"
• Bitcoin Hits the Big Time, to the Regret of Some Early Boosters - MIT Technology Review - "We’ve had multiple billionaires come in and talk to us for an hour and open an account…"
• Target, Macy's and Others Sue Visa and MasterCard Over Fees - Wall St. Journal - "The exercise of this market power has led merchants to pay excessive interchange fees..."
• Judge: Unredeemed Borders Gift Cards Are Worthless - NPR - "…the bankrupt and defunct book chain owes nothing to the roughly 17.7 million people who hold $210.5 million in unredeemed gift cards."
• A Summary of the Electronic Payment Order Forum - Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta - "On March 28, 2013, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta hosted an Electronic Payment Order (EPO) Forum with payments industry participants, including banks, nonbank payment service providers, retailers, and regulators."
• Why PayPal is bullish on Bitcoin - Fortune Tech - "The big question is whether it's going to go mainstream or stay limited to just a few zealots and criminals."
• Jamba Juice rolls out mobile payments more broadly following successful pilot - Mobile Commerce Daily - "The number one issue for a restaurant is controlling the guest experience..."
• Square Starts Mobile Payments In Japan, Its First Country Outside Of North America, In Partnership With Visa’s Ally - TechCrunch - "The Square Reader allows businesses to accept credit card payments from mobile devices for a transaction fee of 3.25% per swipe."
• Bitcoin ATMs: Handy Vending Machines or Money-Laundering Nightmares? - Wired - "Regulators aren’t sure what to make of it. And all that makes the future of Bitcoin ATMs as cloudy as it is interesting."

On the wires:

• Square Arrives in Japan - "Square is available in Japan with the support and partnership of Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation (SMCC)."
• LIFT and Capital One Join Forces in Million Dollar Commitment to Fight Poverty in the United States
• Virtual Piggy Delivers Security Service to Ease Compliance with Federal Trade Commission Regulations - "We validate the identity of both the parent and the child and can authenticate that the parent has approved the website for use by their child quickly and seamlessly…"

On Twitter:

Each minute, 5 new businesses sign up to use #PayPal, says @davidmarcus. #SMB #paypalit

— PayPal (@PayPal) May 21, 2013

On the web:

• PayPal to increase marketing this year for offline push - Reuters (Alistair Barr) - "We want to make sure we have enough density of consumer experiences before we do a lot of marketing. "We have really only one chance at this and we do not want to disappoint customers."
• FTC targets cash-reload code scams - CreditCards.com - "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission Tuesday announced new restrictions on "novel payment methods" that phone and Internet scammers favor…"
• Kopo Kopo: Six Revolutionary Digits -Huffington Post - "Kopo Kopo is a world-class platform which enables small and medium businesses to accept mobile payments and build relationships with their customers. They receive a six-digit till number that allows customers to pay using mobile money."
• Dimon Strengthens Grip at J.P. Morgan - Wall St. Journal - "…shareholders voted overwhelmingly against a proposal to split the chairman and chief executive roles…"
• BitInstant’s Charlie Shrem sees Bitcoin battles ahead - CoinDesk - "…it would be nice if regulations were standardized so businesspeople like him did not have to get fingerprinted again and again to comply with every state’s requirements."
• Swipely Raises $12.5M to Expand Push Into SMB Payment Analytics - Street Fight - "The payments processing and analytics play announced today that it has raised $12.5 million in new funding in a series B round led by Shasta Ventures…"
• Contactless cards: how safe is your money? - Guardian - "The even simpler alternative, I've found, is to have more than one contactless card in your wallet."
• Square will challenge PayPal with its own peer-to-peer cash service - GigaOm - "Square might just be another peer-to-peer payments setup, but it’s building up a consumer following thanks to Square Wallet..."
• Google Admits Defeat In Its 7-Year Battle With Amazon And PayPal - ReadWrite - "Google Checkout may have had great expectations, but it delivered little in the way of results."

On the wires:

• NRF To Reject ‘One-Sided’ Credit Card Swipe Fee Settlement - "The proposed settlement does nothing to bring swipe fees under control and would give Visa and MasterCard a legal blessing to continue their abuse of merchants and consumers indefinitely. No settlement at all would be better than this one-sided ‘agreement’…"
• Xoom and Vesta Announce Partnership for Mobile Wallet Integration - "Through this partnership, the Vesta wallet will also provide subscribers with access to Xoom's money transfer services directly from their smartphone."
• target="_blank"Swipely Secures $12 Million Series B Financing to Accelerate Growth - "It's a major innovation in payments and marketing for small business, and we hope it will transform the way merchants understand and engage with their customers."
• Mobile POS Grows to $2 Billion Market in North America, But Retailers Are Separating Hype From Reality - "…28% of North American retailers plan to adopt Mobile POS in some form by the end of 2013."
• Vesta Introduces New Mobile Wallet for Prepaid Operators featuring Integrated Suite of Financial Services - "By offering the Vesta PayMobile wallet, mobile network operators (MNOs) can enable their prepaid customers to conduct mobile commerce and access critical banking services through their smartphones."
• Virtual Piggy Signs First UK Partners - "Virtual Piggy promotes financial management while empowering youth under 18 to make purchasing, saving and other money management decisions for themselves…"

On Twitter:

We're hosting a payments meetup at @gumroad with talks by @airbnb and @square —come by! gumroad.com/meetup

— Sahil Lavingia (@shl) May 17, 2013

On the web:

• The future of Bitcoin: 3 predictions from experts - GigaOm - "Casares explained how some people in his country are using “old Android phones” to acquire and exchange Bitcoins at a time when the government is clamping down on the trade in U.S. dollars."
• Inside Mastercard’s Social Command Center - Digiday - "For Mastercard, diffusing social in the organization, ironically, meant centralizing it."
• High-Profile VCs Caught up in Bitcoin Mania - PEhub - "As big as the bitcoin opportunity is, it is equally rife with risk."
• Black-hat bitcoin’s days are numbered - Quartz - "Bitcoin has a lot of problems as a currency—its tendency for spasms of crazy volatility, most notably—but fewer as a payments system."
• Bitcoin’s consumerization continues with Perk, a rewards platform and Web browser for normal people - PandoDaily - "Now the only problem is figuring out how to get bitcoin into the hands of the masses."
• Google in Payments: Why Yesterday was BIG News - FinVentures (Tom Noyes) - "Osama and the Google team have done great work getting this out to market. Congrats."
• T-Mobile’s Twitter Account Explains Why Carrier Won’t Support Google Wallet - TmoNews - “We’re supporting ISIS, the wireless payment standard for mobile devices.”
• Square launches faster card swipe machine - Taking Charge - "Sure, we could make payments work better, but why should we when everyone really seems to like plastic?"
• Moving Upstream, PayPal and Square Make a Play for the Local Merchant’s POS - Street Fight - "The gist of PayPal’s and Square’s long-term aspirations is fairly clear: create a two-sided network with a consumer-facing mobile wallet on one end and a merchant processing network on the other, creating a system that gives them control over the entire payment stack."

On the wires:

• International Payment Networks Facing Emerging Threat from Domestic Competition and m-POS - "…the real threat comes when the successful m-POS solution providers follow the PayPal model and enable their own digital wallets and P2P transactions which could completely cut the international networks out of the equation.”
• What is the Killer App for Mobile NFC? It May Not Be Payments, Executives Agree at the 2013 NFC Solutions Summit - "When asked the question "Is NFC dead?" compared to alternate technologies such as cloud payments, Glenbrook Partners Consultant Allen Weinberg stressed that all these technologies are still in the early days and it is too soon to make judgments on what mobile commerce technologies will be the winners and losers. "At the end of the day, we don't have a widespread, commercialized anything yet," he said."
• sweetgreen rewards App an Immediate Success - "Representing the first white-label app from LevelUp, sweetgreen rewards has been an immediate success, allowing guests to earn dollars that can be redeemed at any of sweetgreen's 17 locations and offers various perks that can be unlocked over time…"

Over on MasterCard's Cashless Conversations blog, Ken Moy writes about the recent additions of BK Delivers, LivingSocial and Rakuten.com to the list of merchants now accepting MasterPass. He continues:

We see MasterPass as the future of digital payments — allowing you to shop and make a payment on your phone, tablet, PC or in a store with one simple experience. This future is a reality now with MasterPass live in Australia, Canada and the U.S."

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."

On the web:

• China's UnionPay Payment Network Launches Its First Card Issued in the U.S. - WSJ - "The UnionPay prepaid card will be sold online and in bank branches in major U.S. cities..."
• Mobile Commerce Isn’t Just About Payments - ZDnet UK - "When consumers get added value from their purchase transactions, their mobile phones become not only their conduit into the digital world, but also a kind of concierge, simplifying their lives."
• CBA's clever Kaching ambitions - Business Spectator - "By enabling so many types of payment through a mobile phone, Commonwealth Bank is teaching its customers that if they want to make a payment – in any situation – they should use the Kaching app."
• Starbucks generates 10pc of US revenue from mobile - Mobile Commerce Daily - "Every week, Starbucks is seeing close to four million mobile payment transactions…"
• Chip cards are fundamentally flawed - The Bankwatch Blog - "Sometimes when I read the debates on chip, PIN and EMV I feel I am listening to the Flat Earth Society."
• Future of payments does not need Mastercard or Visa - banking chief - HumanIPO - "The “gorillas” of Mastercard and Visa will in the future no longer be needed because of the direction of banking and payment solutions in the cloud…

On the wires:

• Barclaycard Germany Signed Multi-Year Contract for Debit and Credit Cards with Gemalto

On the web:

• Possible Fed Successor Has Admirers and Foes - NY Times - A look at Janet L. Yellen, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, by Binyamin Appelbaum.
• Federal Judge Threatens to Hold Merchant Trade Groups in Contempt Over Swipe-Fee Websites - WSJ - Judge John Gleeson is irritated about the website: http://merchantsobject.com/
• The Future of Mobile Payments: How to Make Sure You’re Ready
• PW Interview: Amber Feng, Stripe API, The Payment Web - Programmable Web - "Before Stripe, online payments mainly consisted of decades-old banking infrastructure grafted onto the web, resulting in an exceedingly complex process for businesses and a cumbersome experience for their customers..."
• Tesco: NFC payments are too complex and offer too few benefits - NFC World - "NFC was revolutionary 10 years ago but I think it just might have passed its sell-by date…"
• The Redesigned US$100 Note - coming October 8, 2013
• NACHA Positions the ACH Network To Be a P2P Payments Player - Digital Transactions - "...NACHA last August submitted an ACH P2P payments proposal for for comment last August and gave it final approval March 7."
• NACHA PAYMENTS 2013: Highlights from Day One and NACHA PAYMENTS 2013: Day Two Highlights - GXS' All About B2B Blog - Patty Hines
• 2013 Advanced Payments Report - Edgar Dunn - "The Advanced Payments Report 2013 … is based on a review of the global payments landscape, surveys of payments industry stakeholder opinion…"
• Total System Services Management Discusses Q1 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript - "…on the issuing side of our business, we kicked off what I would describe as our most significant business and technology initiative since, really, the launch of TS2."
• American Express streamlines expense tracking via mobile app - Mobile Commerce Daily - "The ReceiptMatch program is being rolled out for American Express Open business card users…"
• Prepaid Popularity on the Rise - The Members Group Blog - "The American Bankers Association study also found that more than 50 percent of U.S. FIs currently offer, or plan to offer, prepaid or reloadable debit cards."
• Visa Survey: Prom Spending Surges 33% Nationwide - "Prom season spending is spiraling out of control as teens continuously try to one-up each other…"

On the wires:

• Tabbedout Launches Powerful Merchant Marketing Tool 'Periscope' - "Periscope gives merchants the ability to monitor customer use of Tabbedout, review their customer's purchase history, collect and respond to guest reviews and create mobile marketing campaigns…"
• CPI Card Group Expands EMV Card Manufacturing Capabilities to Support EMV Migration in the U.S. - "The migration to EMV in the U.S. is unprecedented in terms of size and scale."
• Consult Hyperion joins Open Identity Exchange - "OIX is a non-profit trade organization driving the adoption of new and existing online identity products and services through the development of trust frameworks and listing services."
• FactorTrust Launches Underbanked Index - "Every three months, the Underbanked Index will provide a range of data points including demographic, loan behavior, seasonal effects and others, to help shed light on underbanked consumers."
• Too Busy to Save Money: Research at Stanford Graduate School of Business Examines Why Consumers Pass Up Store Discounts - "Seiler's look at individuals' purchases over time likewise suggests they're trying to minimize search costs."
• PULSE and fisoc Announce Agreement to Provide Buzz Points Rewards Program to Financial Institutions - “In this digital age, our solution enables PULSE to offer its financial institution participants a fully turn-key rewards program. This will provide a distinct advantage to PULSE in the highly competitive debit industry.” (See: Buzz Points)
• NCR Introduces Anti-Skimming Technology to Help Banks Increase Consumer Trust and Reduce Costs - “There were approximately 20,000 skimming incidents in the United States last year. The average cost per incident approached $50,000 and skimming costs across a U.S. bank’s entire ATM network is equivalent to about $2,500 per ATM each year."

MasterCard has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China CITIC Bank for "strategic cooperation in the virtual payments space within and outside China. The two parties aim to jointly develop and promote innovative products and services including Quick Response” (QR) code services, and collaborate to provide a safe and efficient payment experience for domestic and overseas cardholders and merchants."

This collaboration with MasterCard, a technology company in the global payments industry, will build a solid foundation for China CITIC Bank to become China’s global bank card, expanding its footprint worldwide, driving cross-border settlements and improving the cardholder shopping experience outside of China.

On the web:

• Interview: MasterCard's Vision for a Cashless, Cardless, World - AdAge Digital - "Masterpass extends the idea of 'a world beyond cash' to be inclusive of 'a world beyond plastic.'"
• The best interface is no interface - Cooper - "As Jack Dorsey of Square explains, 'NFC is another thing you have to do. It’s another action you have to take. And it’s not the most human action to wave a device around another device and wait for a beep. It just doesn’t feel right.'"
• The Real Significance of the Bitcoin Boom (and Bust) - Time.com - "Once alternative currencies are frictionlessly available on the Internet, every laptop will become its own Cayman Island. However the current boom-and-bust plays out, Bitcoin is the beginning of something, not the end."
• Why Bitcoin crashed, and how Ripple might avoid the same fate - Gigaom - "That single point of failure is the most popular Bitcoin currency exchange, MtGox."
• Rakuten.com Shopping adds a new digital wallet payment option - Internet Retailer - "Online marketplace Rakuten.com Shopping announced this week it has added a digital wallet service called MasterPass to the handful of alternative payment options offered."
• Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall - Reuters - "Retail sales fell 0.4 percent during the month, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was below analysts' expectations that sales would be flat."
• How does Bitcoin work? - The Economist - "Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, Bitcoin has no central monetary authority."
• MCX Makes Its Case for a Merchant-Led Mobile Wallet - PaymentsSource - "As the Merchant Customer Exchange asserts its position in the mobile wallet market, it emphasizes that the path to a consumer’s physical wallet runs through retailers."
• America’s Most Profitable Export Is Cash - NY Times Economix Blog - "Measured in dollar terms, there is 42 percent more cash in circulation today than five years ago."

On the wires:

• CLEAR and Visa Offer Expedited Travel for Visa Signature Account Holders - "Visa Signature account holders can enroll to receive discounted pricing on CLEAR membership with a six-month free trial plus $60 off the annual renewal rate of $179."
• Elavon and Banco Santander Close Deal to Deliver Merchant Services in Spain - "The agreement establishes the JV, Santander Elavon Merchant Services, 51% of which will belong to Elavon and the remaining 49% to Santander."

Media outlets are reporting that MasterCard is the focus of a European Commission antitrust probe into how the company sets cross-border interchange on foreign purchases in the European Economic Area. For more information, see related stories from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and The New York Times.

On the web:

• Mozilla Previews Direct WebPayment API - TechWeek Europe
• Can These Three Steps Protect Your Bank Account? - Portals and Rails
• Interac Debuts NFC Mobile Payment Solution in Canada - Mobile Marketing
• MasterCard Partners With Alibaba Group in China - ChinaRetailNews.com
• Bitcoin: The Internet's Secret Currency Makes Its First Public Appearances - NBCNews.com
• Could Linden Dollars Become Real Money? – Hypergrid Business

On the wires:

• Seamless: SEQR now also with NFC technology
• Global Payments supports V.me by Visa in UK
• Rakuten.com Shopping Incorporates MasterCard MasterPass
• Nubelo Selects Payoneer to Enhance Payment Capabilities to Freelancers Globally
• Green Dot and UniRush Introduce 'RushCard Live' Prepaid Card
• Virtual Piggy Now Integrated with Oracle’s eCommerce Platform

On the web:

• Why Banks Love Debit Cards Again - TIME.com
• Dwolla Taken Offline by DDoS attack - MobilePaymentsToday.com
• What You Need to Know About Credit Card Processing (Five Part Series) - NYTimes.com
• Seamless’s SEQR Skips Visa, MasterCard to Battle Google Wallet - The Washington Post
• How An Unregulated Virtual Currency Became A Billion Dollar Market -TechCrunch
• PayPal of Russia 'Oiwi' Aims to Raise $100 million in a U.S. IPO - Internet Retailer
• Taiwan Plans To Let Local Banks Issue China Unionpay Cards - Reuters

On the wires:

• Cars.com Signs With 41st Parameter
• Bango Hits 100 Operator Connections with Global Bill-to-Mobile Service
• Alibaba Group and MasterCard Sign MOU to Enhance e-Commerce Environment
• IDT and Fiserv Announce Strategic Agreement to Expand Availability of International Calling Services and Walk-in Bill Payments
• Digital River Expands Its Global Online Payments Portfolio with Prepaid Payment Solution, paysafecard

On the web:

• What's Next in Mobile Payments? - Portals and Rails
• Remote Mobile Shoppers and Their Payment Preferences - EcommerceBytes.com
• Booming Swedish IT Startup 'Klarna' Eyes PayPal's Home Turf - Reuters
• Payouts For Startups Gets Easier With New Braintree Service - TechCrunch
• Stripe Partners With Parse To Integrate Mobile Payments For App Developers - TechCrunch
• Walmart Expanding iPhone Checkout System to More Stores and Android - AllThingsD
• Cash Registers Fade Away As Smartphones, Tablets Take Over - Green Bay Press Gazette
• Where's George?: The Trail Of $1 Bills Across The U.S. - NPR
• Facebook to Move From Credits to Local Currency Payments in Q3 2013 - Facebook Blog

On the wires:

• NCR Launches Aloha Mobile to Make Everyday Easier for Restaurants
• MasterCard Smart Data App Helps Eliminate Paper Receipts for Corporate Cardholders
• Mobivity and CheckAlt Partner to Develop Mobile Check Acceptance Solutions
• BitPay Exceeds $2 Million in Transactions Month-to-Date, Lowers Fees for All Merchants
• Zuora Unveils Z-Business for Media, Helping Media Companies Use Paywall 2.0
• Swap Launches Dynamic Digital Payments Platform -- The eWallet Cloud Solution
• Net Element Expands its Mobile Payments Business to 39 More Countries

On the web:

• Payments Company Plastiq Raises $6 Million Series A - TechCrunch
• Dunkin' Donuts App Now Supports Passbook Payments - AppAdvice
• WePay Launches iOS App to Take Invoicing & Payments Mobile - BetaKit
• Sage One Accounting Now Integrates PayPal Payments - Small Business Trends

On the wires:

• LevelUp Reaches 1 Million Users
• MasterCard Extends Global Reach of Mobile Money Services for the Unbanked
• MasterCard, Beam Announce Alliance to Reach 14 Million New Customers
• paysafecard Group Records 22% Growth in 2012

On the web:

• Coinstar Expands Rollout Of Its PayPal-Powered, Coin-Counting Kiosks - TechCrunch
• Samsung Imitates Apple Passbook With New Wallet App Without NFC - Forbes

On the wires:

• 19 mPOS Solutions Achieve MasterCard Best Practices Certification
• Discover Extends Direct Banking Reach with Launch of Cashback Checking Accounts
• Western Union Certifies Ericsson’s Wallet Platform for Mobile Money Transfers
• Mastercard Launches Its First NFC Payment Project in Latin America
• VeriFone and SK C&C Team On Mobile Wallet Acceptance

MasterCard made a number of announcements this week at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona.

• MasterCard Introduces MasterPass – The Future of Digital Payments
• mFoundry and MasterCard to Deliver Digital Wallets Services to Banks
• MasterCard and Orange Join Forces to Deliver Leading Mobile Payments in Spain
• VeriFone and MasterCard to Demonstrate Omni-Channel Checkout Experience to Merchants and Consumers
• Social Media Study Shows Interest and Confusion Over Mobile Payments

Additional information about what MasterCard is doing at the Mobile World Congress is available here.

On the web:

• A Juicy Hands-On With The Facebook Omni-Gift Card - TechCrunch
• Isis to Change Wallet Design; Hires New Wallet App Developer - NFC Times
• Google Quietly Rolls Out New 'Offer Extensions' in AdWords - Search Engine Land
• Tokenization And The Collapse Of The Credit Card Payment Model - Forbes
• More States Consider Ban On Credit Card Surcharges - NBCNews.com
• PayPal Enters Crowded European Mobile Payment Field - WSJ

On the wires:

• PSCU, MasterCard Team to Offer MasterPass to Member-Owner Credit Unions
• Virtual Piggy Integrated into World-Leading Internet Community

On the web:

• The Promises and Pitfalls of Big Data - Portals and Rails
• The '3X Factor' Of Carrier Billing In App Store Purchases - MobilePaymentsToday.com
• Starbucks Dominates Mobile Payments - StorefrontBacktalk
• Mobile Spurs Digital Coupon User Growth - eMarketer

On the wires:

• Access Funds Now or Later with Plastyc Mobile Check Deposit, Powered by Chexar
• MasterCard Becomes Preferred Payment Brand for Aetna's Card Services in the U.S.
• 2Go Media and edo Partner to Bring Targeted Offers and Measurement to Local Advertising
• BMO Bank of Montreal to Offer Western Union Money Transfer via Interac e-Transfer Platform
• Linkable Networks Gives Minnesota Grocery Shoppers Way to Save without Clipping Coupons
• MoneyGram Signs Contract with ampm for International Money Transfer Services

MasterCard has announced financial results for the fourth quarter 2012.

• Net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2012 was $1.9 billion, a 10% increase versus the same period in 2011. Adjusted for currency, net revenue increased 12%.

• Worldwide purchase volume during the quarter was up 13% on a local currency basis versus the fourth quarter of 2011, to $727 billion. As of December 31, 2012, the company’s customers had issued 1.9 billion MasterCard and Maestro-branded cards.

• Cross-border volume was up 17.0%.

Press release, supplemental operating results, and an accompanying investor presentation are available on the MasterCard website.

On the web:

• ‎Debit Networks Reject MasterCard’s EMV-Durbin Solution - Digital Transactions
• Mobile Ordering Provider 'OLO' Receives $5M in Funding from PayPal and Others - QSRweb.com
• Rogue Valley Merchants Leery Of 'Checkout Fee' Surcharge - Ashland Daily Tidings
• Angie's List, Square Announce Mobile POS Partnership - Benzinga
• Visa Service Restored After Canada-Wide Outage - CBC News
• Google Wallet Gets A Makeover - NFC World

On the wires:

• TransUnion Announces Acquisition of ZipCode in Brazil
• MasterCard Expands Strategic Alliance with Hotel Company IHG into the U.S.
• Merchant Warehouse Announces Availability of 'Genius Customer Engagement Platform'
• MedDirect Launches Online Payment Portal for Patient Responsibility Balances
• PayLeap, Acculynk’s Payments Processing Arm, Introduces Developer Integration Tools
• NCR Silver to Make Everyday Easy for 600 Cellairis Franchise Stores and Their Shoppers

On the web:

• MCX Is A Mobile Payment Platform For Retailers, By Retailers - NRF Retail's BIG Blog
• VeriFone Introduces Payment Solution For iPad Mini - MobilePaymentsToday.com

On the wires:

• SpeechStorm Makes IVR Payments Easier (PCI Compliant) in Europe
• TSYS Technology to Help Achieve Financial Inclusion in India
• MasterCard and Equity Bank to Introduce PayPass Enabled Cards in Five African Markets
• Ingenico partners with Microsoft to Drive Retail Innovation
• NCR Launches Mobile Point-of-Sale Optimization Practice

Mobile wallet and transactions platform provider C-SAM and MasterCard have announced a global strategic partnership, as well as a minority investment by MasterCard.

“This partnership further strengthens our ongoing efforts to work with industry-leading companies to deploy our technologies and help drive innovation and adoption in the rapidly evolving digital payments space,” said Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer, MasterCard. “C-SAM’s proven track record and expertise in developing mobile platforms, combined with our worldwide network and suite of industry-leading payments solutions, will help enable us to deliver new, innovative solutions to a wide range of global customers.”

MasterCard announced that its rePower service that transforms cash into electronic money on a prepaid account was recently launched in Europe. The cash reload service which is provided by CQR Payment Group is now available in the UK with other European markets to follow in coming months.

“By enabling cash electronification to take place at a far wider range of merchants or online, MasterCard is creating a series of environments where prepaid can be disruptive to the normal flow of cash in our society and where those people bound to cash can take advantage of the security, convenience and control offered by prepaid," said Matt Lanford Head of Prepaid at MasterCard Europe .

MasterCard announced that US Airways has become the first airline in the world to accept MasterCard PayPass-enabled cards and devices for in-flight purchases.

“MasterCard has been at the forefront of contactless payment innovations, bringing the convenience and speed of PayPass technology to environments where faster transactions are essential for both consumers and merchants,” said Dave Meadon, group head of Global Chip Solutions & Engineering, MasterCard. ”With the broad acceptance of electronic payments, consumers today can travel virtually cash free, eliminating the hassle of carrying cash and without having to fumble through their wallet or purse for exact change.”

MasterCard and FiftyOne Global Ecommerce have announced a partnership that will provide exclusive online shopping offers from top U.S. merchants to MasterCard cardholders outside the United States.

“Fueled by growing emerging economies, broadband penetration and access to information, consumers all over the world have developed a ‘global mindset’ with vast brand recognition and a desire to buy these brands, whenever and wherever,” said Geoff Iddison, Group Executive, Global E-commerce at MasterCard. “MasterCard recognizes this trend, and is working with customers and partners like FiftyOne to provide cardholders an enhanced global shopping experience that is a safe, simple and frictionless.”

The promotion will run from November 22 to December 10, and is available to MasterCard cardholders in 14 markets.

Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has granted preliminary approval in the U.S. merchant litigation. Reuters has a nice write up of the hearing:

During a packed hearing on Friday, lawyers for dozens of objectors -- including Target Corp and Home Depot Inc -- told the judge that the settlement offered meaningless relief for merchants saddled with an estimated $30 billion in annual swipe fees. They also argued that releases shielding Visa and Mastercard from new litigation over the same claims would violate their legal rights and give the two companies protection from for any future anti-competitive behavior.

The National Retail Federation said that is will continue to oppose the settlement and look at other legal options.

In other legal news, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to AmEx's bid to force merchants to arbitrate antitrust claims over it fees.

MasterCard and ING Group have announced a joint trial underway in the Netherlands that extends the functionality of the Mobile MasterCard PayPass app to support online purchases.

The solution being tested in the trial supports two scenarios: first, shopping and paying on a phone where the consumer is able to select merchandise they want to purchase, select their payment method, provide their shipping information and enter their PIN to authenticate the transaction. An EMV-compliant cryptogram is supplied by the phone directly to the merchant’s payment gateway for processing. In the second scenario, the consumer is able to start their shopping on a PC or tablet, and then complete the payment step on their phone using a secure QR code that connects the Mobile PayPass application in the user’s phone securely to the merchant’s online shopping cart.

MasterCard has announced financial results for the third quarter 2012.

• Net revenue for the third quarter of 2012 was $1.9 billion, a 5% increase versus the same period in 2011. Adjusted for currency, net revenue increased 10% compared to the same period in 2011.

• Worldwide purchase volume during the quarter was up 12% on a local currency basis versus the third quarter of 2011, to $676 billion.

• As of September 30, 2012, the company’s customers had issued 1.9 billion MasterCard and Maestro-branded cards.

• Cross-border volume was up 14%.

TSYS announced today an agreement with Truaxis, a MasterCard company, to make available transaction- and behavior-specific marketing offers. The new offering integrates cardholder spending patterns and behavior with an innovative platform that delivers personalized rewards, offers, loyalty incentives and other services to the end consumer.

“TSYS has the ability to work with any partner to offer our clients a variety of innovative solutions that add increased value to their cardholders,” said Paul Bridgewater, group executive of Global Product, TSYS. “Using data analysis to introduce relevant offers based on behavior is an incredibly active space for us, and we are excited about the prospects.”

MasterCard and NTT DOCOMO have announced that MasterCard has been selected as a partner to expand contactless payments options for consumers in Japan. "The collaboration will connect DOCOMO’s domestic payment network to the world, enabling customers using iD mobile credit payments with compatible DOCOMO smartphones to make contactless payments outside of Japan, anywhere MasterCard PayPass is accepted."