On the web:

• Banks Urged to Better Fend Off Cyber Attacks - Wall St. Journal - "U.S. regulators are stepping up calls for banks to better-arm themselves against the growing online threat hackers and criminal organizations pose to individual institutions and the financial system as a whole."
• Visa Sues Wal-Mart to End Retailer’s Swipe Fee Claims - Bloomberg BusinessWeek - “Put simply, Visa seeks finality in its dispute with Wal-Mart,” the Foster City, California-based credit card firm said in the complaint.
• Visa To Court: Tell Walmart We're Not Anti-Competitive - FierceRetail - "…Visa asked the court to declare that Visa's default interchange rates, "honor all card" rules and 2008 IPO do not violate either federal or state antitrust laws."
• Number of opt-outs in $7.2 bln credit card settlement made public - Thomson Reuters - "Nearly 8,000 merchants out of a proposed class of 8 million have opted out of a $7.2 billion class action settlement involving an alleged conspiracy to inflate credit card fees."
• U.S. Regulator: Virtual Currencies Have 'Nothing to Fear' - Wall St. Journal - "Those offering virtual currencies must comply with these regulatory requirements, and if they do so, they have nothing to fear from Treasury…"
• Bitcoin in business: Buyer’s Best Friend - CoinDesk -
• New prepaid credit card funded by bitcoins - CoinDesk - "We programmed our POS (point of sale) to accept bitcoins and also accept credit/debit (most popular), cash or check (almost nobody). Bitcoin is our favorite payment method – cash is a pain to count and handle, and credit cards charge large processing fees."
• 2013 Innovators to Watch: 44 Executives Shaping The Future of Banking - Bank Innovation - "We believe that innovation in the financial services industry is driven not by the top dogs or the most senior executives, but by people who have dynamism, who look at banking innovation as anything but an oxymoron…"

Upcoming from Glenbrook:

• Summer Camp! - A special summer session of our popular Payments Boot Camp - in Half Moon Bay on August 6th and 7th... Also, an optional half day course on Data In Payments - August 8th, also in Half Moon Bay. Join Carol, Scott and Russ for lively, interactive sessions - register now!
• Follow Glenbrook Partners on LinkedIn! -

On the web:

• The Future of Money and Bitcoin by Chris Larsen, CEO of OpenCoin - CitizenTekk - "Who will be the Google, Facebook, or Alibaba of the math-based money era? We don't know yet, but we know they're coming. And when they get here, they won't be using ACH."
• iWallet: What Apple left out of its WWDC presentation - Fortune - "Of course, just because Apple patents a technology doesn't mean it will develop it. But at this point the company has amassed quite an arsenal of patents covering mobile payments."
• So, what happens to Passbook in iOS 7? - GigaOm - "If Apple is cooking up such a service, it’s possible there will be a hardware element involved in it."
• Apple Granted Patent for iWallet Parental/Employee Controls - Patently Apple - "The technology which uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and likely a little Apple magic, negates the need for NFC which Phil Schiller had stated last September."
• Weve to launch NFC payments in the UK in 2014 - NFC World - "We want to be mass market straight away — which means at least 50 per cent of consumers by the end of next year."
• Regulators Turn Up Heat Over Bank Fees - Wall St. Journal - "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in a report set for release Tuesday, plans to criticize the U.S. banking industry for practices that it says range from confusing rules on overdraft fees..."
• Banks Seen as Aid in Fraud Against Older Consumers - New York Times - "Indeed, banks across the country, from some of the largest to smaller regional players, help facilitate billions of dollars of fraud each year…"
• Mobile Wallets: What’s The Value Proposition? - Snarketing 2.0 - "The value proposition of the so-called mobile wallet – whatever that means, considering there’s no consensus on its definition — isn’t clear just yet."
• Google Wallet’s Osama Bedier Confirms That Google Lost Money With Every Transaction. (Good News: It Didn’t Get Many.) - Storefront Backtalk - "…what got short-shrift was finding a way to get shoppers to use its app."
• The continuing battle over interchange fees - Financial Services Club Blog - "In fact, ... Poland has some of the highest interchange fees of any European country…"
• Social Commerce Startup Chirpify to Power In-Stream Credit Card Purchases - AllThingsD - "Previously, the only payment method was PayPal."
• 46 Bitcoin APIs: Bitstamp, Bitcoin Charts Markets and 50BTC - ProgrammableWeb - "Our API directory now includes 46 bitcoin APIs."
• Freicoin’s attempt to free the economy - CoinDesk - "What I realized is that Bitcoin is the most revolutionary technology, I would say ever."
• QR code-enabled virtual stores support merchants’ mobile shopping strategies - Mobile Commerce Daily - "Walmart is one of the retailers that has been a big proponent of leveraging QR codes for virtual shopping."

On the wires:

• Visa and Ethoca Collaborate to Help eCommerce Merchants Reduce Fraud - "Using near real-time information from Visa on confirmed fraud transactions, Ethoca is able to send secure alerts to the affected merchants in the critical 24-72 hour window between when eCommerce orders are placed and when they are fulfilled or shipped…"
• UK Payments Council announces customer guarantee for new current account switch service - "The new service aims to increase competition in banking by making it simpler and hassle-free for customers to switch their current account."
• First Data Releases May 2013 SpendTrend® Analysis - "Dollar volume growth increased 6.0% in May compared to April’s 5.1% growth."
• Text2Pay Now Accepting Bitcoins – The New Social Currency - "Bitcoins are the equivalent of Internet cash. Users can send Bitcoins over the Internet to anyone worldwide with no middle-man or institution to take fees."

Upcoming from Glenbrook:

• Summer Camp! - A special summer session of our popular Payments Boot Camp - in Half Moon Bay on August 6th and 7th... Also, an optional half day course on Data In Payments - August 8th, also in Half Moon Bay. Join Carol, Scott and Russ for lively, interactive sessions - register now!
• Follow Glenbrook Partners on LinkedIn! -

On the web:

• PNC to add deposit, balance requirements for free checking - Chicago Tribune - "According to the Web site of the Pittsburgh-based bank, free checking will no longer be available for new accounts as of Aug. 18."
• Accelerating the migration to electronic payments through mobile acceptance solutions - "At Visa, we see great potential to accelerate the migration to electronic payments through mPOS solutions."
• “Life on Bitcoin”: These newlyweds plan to live for 90 days entirely on bitcoin, and film the whole thing - PandoDaily - "As someone who has used bitcoin in the digital world but never in the physical world, I’m fascinated to see how this plays out."
• Who is your Edward Snowden? - The Bankwatch - "The core assumption, which is flawed, applies to the NSA and to Banks, as well as all businesses. That assumption is that business information is opaque to the information system handlers."

On the wires:

• MasterCard and Kount Join Forces to Help Merchants Fight e-Commerce Fraud - "Kount is the first company to offer the MasterCard Expert Monitoring API to merchants."
• Moneris Solutions names Angela Brown, President & CEO - "Brown’s mandate is to continue to position Moneris as the leading merchant services and card processing provider in North America."
• CardConnect Announces Launch of CoPilot - "CoPilot brings every aspect of running a successful, growing ISO to each agent’s fingertips…"
• MoneyGram Joining Forces with Lebara to Offer International Money Transfers on Mobile Devices - "MoneyGram’s money transfer platform is now integrated within the Lebara Money iPhone and Android mobile payment platform solutions and the Lebara Money website…"
• Taco John's Chooses FreedomPay Commerce Platform to Enable Growth - "The new Taco John’s Platform is a virtual transaction superhighway with the power to enhance the customer experience in-store, online and across any mobile device."
• <Oberthur Technologies Partners with HID Global to Carry Seos Digital Keys on NFC SIM Cards for Mobile Access - "Oberthur Technologies’ dragonFly NFC SIM cards and its secure elements in general are interoperable with Seos from HID Global…"

SEC Filings:

• Green Dot Bank to Acquire Wal-mart Prepaid Cards Agreement from GE Capital Retail Bank

Upcoming from Glenbrook:

• Summer Camp! - A special summer session of our popular Payments Boot Camp - in Half Moon Bay on August 6th and 7th... Also, an optional half day course on Data In Payments - August 8th, also in Half Moon Bay. Join Carol, Scott and Russ for lively, interactive sessions - register now!
• Follow Glenbrook Partners on LinkedIn! -

On the web:

• Walmart: Settlement ‘Worse Than Losing’ - StorefrontBacktalk
• States Join Foes of Card-Fee Settlement - Wall St. Journal - "The attorneys general of California, Ohio, Arizona and six other states argued in an objection filed Tuesday…"
• The US surcharging mess - Tomorrow's Transactions - "Payments regulation in the US is, as one of the panelists rather amusingly said, two fat guys fighting over dessert. The fat guys are the banks and the retailers, the ones with the lobbyists, and the dessert is interchange revenue."
• On ropes but not quite done - Canberra Times - "All around Australia, laboratories are experimenting with non-cash payments, raising the question of whether money, as we know it, is history."
• 2013 Internet Trends - Kleiner Perkins - Mary Meeker and Liang Wu's latest update.
• Bitcoin is a money platform with many APIs - O'Reilly Radar - "Bitcoin is much more than just a digital currency. It is a protocol, a network, a currency and a transaction language. Most of all, though, it is an application programming interface (API) for money."
• In A Single ATM, The Story Of A Nation's Economy - Planet Money - "This all-cash economy is one of the things that is holding back Myanmar's economy. The rest of the world no longer operates on rice sacks filled with paper money."
• Square’s Kimble: There’s ‘More Opportunity Than Obstacle’ in Payments Space - StreetFight - "I am really glad to see the network rules evolving to enable innovation. We are optimistic that will continue."
• Payleven ties up with Apple for retail push of its Chip & PIN card reader - The Next Web - "Apple specifically chose our Chip & PIN solution for their European stores, both offline as well as online."
• EMV Could Make Prepaid Cards Prohibitive to Issue, Unless … - American Banker BankThink (Lanny Byers) - "Either prepaid will move to mobile or prepaid will have to be repositioned toward a more value-added proposition."
• After Liberty Reserve Shut Down, Is Bitcoin Next? - "If you’re not compliant, there are some serious risks, both at the federal and state levels."
• How do you secure yourself in an insecure world? - Financial Services Club Blog (Chris Skinner) - "Just gave a presentation at the EFMA Conference this week on online insecurity…"
• AWS IAM Now Supports Amazon, Facebook, and Google Identity Federation - Amazon Web Services Blog - "For those of you not yet familiar with Login with Amazon, it's a new service you can use to securely connect your websites and apps with millions of Amazon.com customers."

On the wires:

• Blackhawk Network Recognizes Partners For Prepaid Industry Achievements - "The Hawk Awards recognize those companies who have contributed the most to the industry across the past year..."
• Payoneer Secures European Union E-Money License, Adds Management Talent - “We are committed to the vision of a world in which cross-border payment is simple, low cost and compliant - and as frictionless as electronic commerce,” said Payoneer CEO Scott Galit.
• Homeowners Pay Down $50 Million in Mortgage Principal Using the Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card Rewards Program - "Virtually every purchase a customer makes with the card counts toward rebates credited to the principal on their Wells Fargo Home Mortgage loan."
• Amazon Announces Login with Amazon to Reduce Sign-In Friction and Drive Higher Customer Engagement - "Amazon customers now have a hassle-free way to quickly and securely sign-in to apps, games and websites, without having to remember yet another password."
• TSYS Renews Payments Agreement with Nationwide Building Society - "As part of the agreement, TSYS will continue to process Nationwide’s UK consumer card portfolio, as well as supporting all of its contact centre operations."
• Earthport to receive $10m investment from IFC, a member of World Bank Group - "The funding will be used to expand Earthport’s presence and payments service infrastructure, particularly in developing countries."

On Twitter:

#MobilePayments: maybe we should stop focusing on changing merch & consumer behavior and instead add new m-merchants. Like PayPal in 2001...

— Jim Van Dyke (@JimVanDyke) May 29, 2013

On the web:

• Walmart Joins NRF, Ends Longest-Running Retail Feud Ever - StorefrontBacktalk - "According to one person familiar with the players involved, what changed is the nature of some of the legislation that Walmart is now pushing, such as interchange and tax considerations for E-Commerce."
• The case for digital tender - FT Alphaville - "…Central banks should issue their own e-money instead of leaving it in the hands of private companies."
• Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Architect: Meet The Man Bringing You Bitcoin (And Getting Paid In It) - Huffington Post - "The mission is really to create a stable worldwide currency for the internet."
• Yay, hiss! Cards' mag stripe 'fingerprint' may foil thieves - Taking Charge Blog - "It turns out there's a similar lo-fi static attached to your credit card's magnetic stripe that, much like my vinyl mixtape, has long gone unheard and unappreciated."
• Champ at the Bitcoin (Comic) - AllThingsD
• Prepaid Debit Cards More Popular, Despite Fees - NY Times Bucks Blog - "One of the more frustrating fees on the cards is a charge for calling customer service."
• Bitcoin Isn’t the Only Cryptocurrency in Town - Technology Review - "Several others are also surging in popularity and value, and they claim to offer technical improvements that make them better suited to mainstream use."
• Eat Out Kenya Launches Partnership with KopoKopo, Safaricom - Yummy - "MPESA should be an option that every restaurant offers, especially when KopoKopo have streamlined the management and reporting process."
• The business case for EMV in the USA, yet again - Consult Hyperion's Tomorrow's Transactions Blog - "…I might go a little further and say that if cross-sector authentication solutions are developed reasonably quickly, then the issuers might be much better off shifting to the "something present" (SP) model sooner rather than later…"
• PayPal Extends Seller Protection Provision Off eBay - EcommerceBytes.com - "It appears not all sellers are covered for off-eBay protections yet, as PayPal rolls out coverage through the year, so look for a letter in your email inbox."
• Miura: we’ll ship 500,000 chip & PIN readers this year - Mobile Money Revolution

On the wires:

• Steve Elefant: A Pioneer in Payments, Point of Sale and Electronic Commerce Joins GoPago to Lead Strategy - "I have looked at all of the solutions and without a doubt, GoPago has the most robust cloud-based commerce, point-of-sale and mobile ordering platform on the market today."
• WorldPay and Intershop partner to deliver eCommerce solution with extensive payment processing and risk functionality - "The integration will provide retail merchants with a complete eCommerce solution with extensive payment processing, global customer reach and risk functionality."
• Mercury Leader Joins ETA Mobile Payments Committee - "In this role, Nayfack will develop best practices in mobile commerce with industry peers to enable merchants and consumers to navigate technological “ease-of-use.”

On the web:

• PayPal Ready to Seek E-commerce Gold in Russia - Telegraph
• Google Wallet "one of the biggest investments we've made at Google" - NFC World
• New Wal-Mart Kiosks Present Subtle, But Real, Threat to Banks - American Banker
• Thoughts on Google Wallet - NetBanker
• Avoiding Security Missteps in a World of Pervasive Data Collection - Portals and Rails
• Women's Guide to Success in Payments - LINC Northern California

On the wires:

• Accel Partners Leads $50 Million Investment in YapStone
• New Mercator Report on Global Prepaid Market
• E-Commerce Merchants Prepare for Issuer Response to Durbin Legislation
• BookIt.com Sells Travel Packages Using PayPal 'Parallel' Payments
• Fiserv and Dollar Bank Expand Partnership to Streamline Lending Operations, Support the Customer Experience

Discover has announced the extension of its network agreement with Walmart through 2015 in which Discover will continue to be the exclusive network for transactions made on the Walmart Discover card issued by GE Money bank. READ MORE »

In an article in yesterday's American Banker titled "For Wal-Mart, No Bank Charter Is No Problem", Maria Aspan reported on how "not getting a bank charter two years ago may have been one of the best things to happen to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s financial services agenda." Indeed, Wal-Mart has been very successful "with products aimed at the growing market of underbanked and low-income consumers who are largely underserved by the banking industry."

In today's Deal of the Day column on SmartMoney.com, Lisa Scherzer writes about "The Pitfalls of Prepaid Cards" - noting that "Prepaid cards may not come with the sky high late-payment fees or APRs of traditional credit cards, but they do carry a slew of other charges." She goes on to recommend four network-branded prepaid cards "whose fees are a little more palatable than others" - including two from MetaBank, the Wal-Mart Money Card issued by GE Money, and the new Current Debit Card by Discover.

Walmart has announced that it is "stepping up efforts to provide affordable access to essential money services for the growing number of underserved Americans, including the millions who are not using traditional checking accounts to manage their finances. Dubbed "Operation Main Street: Money Management," the program includes a $3 Rollback price on the Walmart MoneyCard and a focus on financial literacy." READ MORE »