On the web:

• PayPal Buys Mobile App Developer Duff Research - Reuters
• FTC Issues Report On Mobile Payment Security, Privacy - MobilePaymentsToday.com
• First Financial, US Bank Launch First Photo Billpay Services - NetBanker
• eBay Opens Door into Russia with PayPal License - eCommerce Bytes

On the wires:

• WorldPay Acquires Card Payments Service Provider YESpay
• Western Union to Enable Government Payments in Haiti
• NCSOFT Adopts BilltoMobile for High-Conversion Mobile Payments
• NutraClick selects ReD Shield payment fraud prevention service
• Simplee's New Payments & Loyalty Platform Sets the Standard in Patient Billing

On the web:

• Isis Mobile Wallet lands on the Play Store for T-Mobile - Android Community
• American Express Launches Mobile App for its Bluebird Prepaid Card - NetBanker
• PayPal Opens Up 'Bill Me Later' To Small-to-Medium Online Businesses - GigaOM
• Payments Platform Braintree Raises $35M From NEA, Accel - TechCrunch

On the wires:

• Netsuite Integrates with Worldpay to Offer Merchants End-to-End Commerce
• Leading Social Gaming Platform Developer Huzutech Selects Virtual Piggy for Secure Payments
• LevelUp Integrates With Merchant Warehouse's Genius Customer Engagement Platform

A global 'Perfect Passenger Payment' insights report, commissioned by WorldPay, finds that 66% of airline merchants are seeing fraud levels stay the same or increase as they lose 1.5% of booking revenue to fraudulent transactions. 29% of airlines reported that incidents of fraud have risen in the past year.

The good news for airlines is that customers are happy to accept a robust screening process when buying tickets online. 71% of consumers would prefer a slower payment process with more rigorous security checks than a faster process with fewer checks.

On the web:

• Groupon Acquires POS Start Breadcrumb to Connect with Local Restaurants - VentureBeat
• PayPal InStore App: Use your PayPal Account on the High Street (UK) - Shiny Shiny
• Banks Tacking Fees On To Campus Debit Cards (video) - MSNBC.com

On the wires:

• Discover and Ducks Unlimited Announce New Affinity Card
• i2c and KargoCard Announce Partnership to Power Prepaid, Mobile Payments and Loyalty Solutions in China
• Risk Office from Fiserv: Helping Clients Reduce Dollar Fraud Losses by an Average of 40%
• Acculynk and National Payments Corporation of India Announce Internet PIN Debit Partnership
• WorldPay Launches Advanced RFI and Chargeback Management Platform
• Planet Payment Acquires Branded Payment Solutions Ltd (Ireland)
• Cellum Introduces MasterCard Mobile Wallet (Hungary)

Visa Europe has announced that its new digital wallet service, V.me by Visa, will launch to an initial group of consumers in the UK, Spain and France in autumn 2012.

Mariano Dima, Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing Solutions at Visa Europe, said: "V.me sits at the heart of Visa's future of payments. For the first time, consumers and retailers will have a streamlined online checkout experience through an acceptance mark that offers industry-leading security and, when a Visa card is used in a V.me wallet, the same protection and rights that come with any Visa card transaction.

Visa Europe also announced WorldPay as key UK development partner.

WorldPay and China UnionPay have today announced "a partnership which will see WorldPay become the biggest acquirer outside of China for eCommerce UnionPay transactions. The agreement will see WorldPay become the first UnionPay Online Payment acquirer in the US and the vast majority of Europe1, to enable merchants to sell directly to consumers in China, as well as UnionPay cardholders outside of China."

BOKU announced that Payment Service Provider (PSP) WorldPay has selected BOKU as its global mobile payments partner, integrating BOKU’s payments platform into its payment network.

“WorldPay is a leading payment service provider with an outstanding network of merchants,” said James Patmore, SVP and Managing Director, BOKU. “Our technology helps do the hard work for our merchants, things like foreign exchange, granular price points, multiple currencies & languages, and more. We believe BOKU offers WorldPay merchants a powerful tool for the acquisition of new customers and an opportunity to enhance their purchase experience, leveraging the convenience of BOKU for all types of digital goods and services.”

WorldPay and Diners Club International (DCI), a business unit of Discover Financial Services, have announced the signing of a merchant acquiring agreement that will increase the acceptance of Discover and Diners Club cards in the U.K. "WorldPay will build on its current relationship by adding Diners Club and Discover as standard options to its portfolio of payments processing services beginning in early 2012, in time for the summer Olympic Games in London."

RBS Group announced that it has "agreed to sell a controlling 80.01% interest in RBS WorldPay, its Global Merchant Services business, to a consortium of Advent International and Bain Capital for an enterprise value of up to £2.025bn. RBS will hold a minority stake in the new GMS group of 19.99%, as part of the agreement."

RBS WorldPay is Europe’s largest merchant acquirer and the fourth largest globally, operating in over 30 markets. READ MORE »

GDS Link has announced that is has been selected by RBS WorldPay to incorporate its DataView360 decisioning technology for better portfolio segmentation and merchant fraud identification. According to the company, "with DataView360, clients can implement and manage their fraud-based rules for several business functions, including screening for fraudulent transactions or generating knowledge-based questions and answers." READ MORE »

Javelin has announced a new report titled "End-to-End Encryption, Tokenization, and EMV in the US: Vendor Analysis of Emerging Technologies and Best Hybrid Solutions" that "assesses the capabilities of end-to-end encryption, tokenization, virtual terminals, magnetic-stripe security and the EMV standard as solutions to combat payment-related data breaches." READ MORE »

• Gift Card Mall(TM) Now Available on Amazon.com
• The PayPal Blog: Cool New App Using PayPal (Shutterfly's Wink)
• SunTrust Introduces Daily Budgeting Application for Facebook
• NYTimes.com: Weather Keeps Some Bankers Away From Obama Talk
• UniRush Renews TSYS Agreement
• Just in Time for the Holidays, Fiserv Awards One Million UChoose Rewards® Points Worth $10,000 to Ten Lucky Cardholders in YOU WIN Sweepstakes
• MarketWatch: Visa, Mead Johnson to join S&P 500 index
• BankCard USA Launches 5 Point Service Guarantee Program
• ID Analytics Hosts Webinar to Discuss New Study on Links Between Change of Address and Fraud
• WSJ.com: Citi's Statement on TARP Repayment
• Times Online: Advent International readies £3bn RBS offer

3Delta Systems has announced that it has been certified to directly process electronic payment transactions with RBS WorldPay. RBS WorldPay offers merchants an range of payment processing solutions – from face-to-face to online, servicing all sizes and sectors of business. READ MORE »

As part of its agreement with the UK government announced today, the Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to participation in a revised Asset Protection Scheme that, among many other conditions, requires RBS to divest itself of several businesses over the next four years including its Global Merchant Services unit. According to RBS, its Global Merchant Services unit "is the fourth largest provider of global card payment services, enabling over 5 billion card transactions to be made each year. It meets the rapidly changing and increasingly sophisticated needs of clients to accept card payments on a global, efficient and secure basis."

RBS WorldPay has announced that National Payment Card Association (NPCA) debit cards can be processed by RBS WorldPay. According to RBS WorldPay, "NPCA offers merchants a card acceptance solution with significantly lower transaction fees than traditional credit or debit cards." READ MORE »

VeriFone Holdings has announced that RBS WorldPay has agreed to work jointly towards marketing VeriFone's VeriShield Protect end-to-end solution for encrypting payment card data. According to VeriFone, "RBS WorldPay is the first merchant acquirer to endorse a commercial end-to-end encryption solution. By encrypting the card number on swipe, right at the point of sale, RBS WorldPay merchants who choose the VeriShield Protect solution will be able to dramatically reduce both their own risk and that of their customers as well." READ MORE »

In a press release titled "RBS WorldPay Announces Compromise of Data Security and Outlines Steps to Mitigate Risk", RBS WorldPay (formerly RBS Lynk), the U.S. payment processing arm of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, announced that its computer system had been improperly accessed by an unauthorized party in early November.

According to more information provided on the RBS Worldpay web site, "the issue affected pre-paid cardholders and other individuals. Approximately 100 payroll cards have been used in a fraudulent manner and those cards have been de-activated. Our internal security professionals and outside experts are working with federal and state law enforcement authorities in an investigation of this event."

Revolution Money has announced that RBS WorldPay (formerly RBS Lynk) will be offering RevolutionCard as a payment option to its merchants. According to the companies, the agreement extends the RevolutionCard network to nearly 300,000 online and physical merchant locations. READ MORE »

Chockstone and RBS Lynk have announced a strategic partnership to provide loyalty services to RBS Lynk restaurant merchants. According to the two companies, "Chockstone's unique loyalty platform helps further differentiate RBS Lynk's product offering for restaurant operators, demonstrating RBS Lynk's commitment to offering unrivaled products and service for its restaurant customer locations." READ MORE »

AdvanceMe, a provider of merchant cash advances for small and mid-sized businesses, has announced a milestone with RBS Lynk delivering almost $15 million in working capital to the RBS Lynk customer base over the last six months. Through a referral relationship, RBS Lynk expanded its product portfolio to include AdvanceMe's Merchant Cash Advance product, helping clients' access capital quickly, despite tightening credit markets. READ MORE »