Over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook’s Carol Coye Benson took a look at the UK’s Faster Payments Service.
Carol spoke with David McFarlane, Company Manager of CHAPS Clearing Company about FP – and said she was surprised by much of what he said – FP is not what you thought!
Her article comes at a good time to ask [...]

Newly released data shows that PayPal is up to five times more fraud-prone than regular credit cards, based on statements made by eBay to the Australian ACCC last year.
Financial Fraud Action UK, the voice of the industry in the UK for financial fraud matters, (previously known as APACS) has published the latest payment industry fraud [...]

Last Thursday’s UK card fraud report was surprisingly positive – with card fraud losses down 23% for the first half of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008.
However, there was much worse news with respect to online banking fraud – which spiked up 55% in the same period.  I’ve not seen the data to [...]

A new US-focused Bank Fraud Forum has been launched by Memento Security.
The new site is dealing with serious topics and has a clean but serious style and colour scheme.
The use of blogging software, despite the site name, will limit discussion responses somewhat (in my experience) compared to using a full online forum software, though it [...]

Whilst the overall global economy has been at the forefront of financial news so far this year, I’ve noticed that the news-feeds are rapidly filling up with an ever-increasing number of stories focussed on the US Credit Card Industry.
I’m not talking about panic depression about financial performance indicators and quarterly results worse than even eBay’s, [...]

MasterCard Worldwide has announced the issuance of the 50 millionth MasterCard PayPass card or device. In the last year, the number of PayPass cards and devices more than doubled.
According to MasterCard, “this significant PayPass momentum demonstrates not only the demand for simple solutions when it comes to payments, but also the continued secular shift [...]

Visa recently held a Global Security Summit at which, Visa chief enterprise risk officer Ellen Richey told security experts today that payment card data fraud rates remain near historic lows despite economic woes and high-profile compromises.
She said the situation called for continued industry investment, collaboration and innovation, three key components in keeping the electronic payment [...]

In an article titled “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Spending“, M.P. Dunleavey wrote for the New York Times about her struggles to get out of $30,000 in credit card debt.
Ditching debt requires dealing with the emotional underbelly of owing money, and coming to terms with a culture that has serious debt addiction issues. Getting out [...]

Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of TIME, and President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, wrote last week’s Time Magazine cover story, entitled “How to Save Your Newspaper (It’s Micropayments!)“.
His article is all about how to save your newspaper from what appears to be inevitable financial ruin, and he believes the answer is micropayments.
“The key [...]

In an article titled “Credit Card Companies Go to War Against Losses“, Ron Lieber wrote for the New York Times about the actions that US credit card issuers are taking in an effort to reign in credit losses on their cards.
According to Lieber, the steps the issuers are taking include; raising interest rates, lowering credit [...]

The Bank of Canada has published a working paper by Jason Allen, Robert Clark, and Jean-Francois Houde titled -
“Market Structure and the Diffusion of E-Commerce: Evidence from the Retail Banking Industry“.
This paper studies the role that market structure plays in affecting the diffusion of electronic banking.

Citi has announced the first edition of a new quarterly report on its use of TARP funds.
The report, titled “What Citi Is Doing to Expand the Flow of Credit, Support Homeowners and Help the U.S. Economy” (pdf document) includes a section on Citi’s credit card business, on page 23, where it states -
“Citi’s primary objective, [...]

A recent Auctiva Edu blog post caught my eye, while preparing for a week on BuildaSkill looking at the bank plastic industry and it’s future for small businesses.  The Auctiva post begins -
Paper or plastic? Customers are used to hearing this question at their local grocery stores, but they also want the option when [...]

The UK Press Association has reported that -
“one in four Britons have been the victim of credit or debit card fraud, research has shown. Around 26% of people have now had their card used fraudulently, up from 21% when the same research was carried out 12 months ago, according to life assistance group CPP.”
Other [...]

Britain’s Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) welcomed the announcement of a new £1.3 billion fund for small firms last week.
The Enterprise Finance Guarantee, which the FSB will be actively promoting to its 215,000 members, should compel banks to start lending again and help viable small businesses access finance which they desperately need to maintain cash [...]