PaymentsNews report on the latest Nilson report and payments volumes in the US.  As much as internet is embedded in our lives, its always partly disappointing, and partly challenging to see the overall status of electronic payments.  But electronic has reached 10%, and a certain proportion of the card volume is online too, so progress is being made.  Charts like this always beg more questions than answers, but unfortunately this is all we have on this proprietary research.   Technorati tags: payments, US, electronic+payments Continue reading US Payments statistics | Nilson

Australia is an interesting study on the topic of interchange.  Its a relatively homogenous market, making it a reasonable study and control group.  The regulators sought to improve the position of consumers. This paper (link courtesy of Payments News) looks at the interchange reforms in that country. With the changes to the economics of both the credit card and the EFTPOS systems in Australia, some of the larger merchants are becoming self-acquirers. Coles Myer, for example, has links with all of the major Australian banks, American Express, Diners Club and agencies.  All payments through Coles terminals are ‘acquired’ by Coles and switched directly … Continue reading Fiddling with Interchange is not a simple proposition

 In a display of great focus for a 1bn annual profit company, Paypal introduces cash rebates. NEW YORK – PayPal, the payment-service company owned by online auction site eBay Inc., said Monday it will launch an incentive program, allowing customers who subscribe to the service to receive cash rebates of up to $20 on several thousand merchants’ sites in North America. In a release, PayPal said that the cash rebate programs, valued at $100 million, will be available to consumers from Nov. 23 through May 15. Free shipping promotions will be available beginning Nov. 23. Source: PayPal to offer cash … Continue reading PayPal to offer cash rebates – Yahoo! News

 Nice touch from Barclays with a ‘green’, environmentally friendly debit card. Barclays customers are set to go green with the launch of the UK’s first carbon neutral debit card. This new card, which is entirely blue including the edge, is being rolled out to the bank’s 11 million debit card users as their current ones expire. Barclays has worked closely with Axalto, its card manufacturer on this innovative card. Axalto, advised by The Carbon Neutral Company, has undertaken to finance projects that work to reduce carbon emissions in the developing world, effectively balancing out the harmful emissions of the card’s … Continue reading Barclays launches ‘carbon neutral’ card – AllPayNews

 First Data International will compete fully with Moneris in Canada with addition of debit to their arsenal.  This is a big deal in Canada, which has largely gone cashless, preferring debit and credit. First Data International, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment services, today announced it has become a member of the Interac Association. First Data will begin offering INTERAC services to the Canadian marketplace in the second quarter of 2007. Source: First Data to offer Interac services in Canada in 2007 – AllPayNews: Payment and fraud news, blog, jobs and discussions   Technorati tags: payments, interac, debit, … Continue reading First Data to offer Interac services in Canada in 2007 – AllPayNews

Was chatting to Neil from IBM tonight, while he is in Sydney for SIBOS, the annual SWIFT conference.  This thing is huge – 6,500 people last year in Sweden.  I learned tonight there are only 10 cities in the world that can handle the SIBOS conference.  The point is that payments are worldwide, and enormous!  Its a large audience focussed on one thing – international payments.   Technorati tags: SIBOS, payments Continue reading SIBOS – Sydney October 9th 2006

 Dave points out here another point, without meaning to.  Australia (as a Brit I hate to say this) confounds logic by approaching payments matters in a most peculiar way, and this is just another example. Here’s an example, discussing what the poster calls the the most ill-considered banking product ever devised. Source: Digital Money Blog: The most ill-considered banking product ever devised? I doubt it.   Technorati tags: australia, payments Continue reading Digital Money Blog: The most ill-considered banking product ever devised?

 Dave discusses an Alliance & Leicester Commercial Banks Cash Survey published recently.  Boots have given up on cheque’s, which is significant.  In Canada cheque’s were killed off in most retailers a long time ago, but in the US are still accepted.  According to The Daily Telegraph, Boots is going to stop accepting cheque’s as they now account for only 2 in every 1,000 transactions. For our overseas readers, I should point out that Boots is a British institution, a high-street pharacy-cum-drugstore. I’m not sure, but I think the key statistic is that two-thirds of the UK population visit a branch … Continue reading Digital Money Blog: Death of the cheque

This new report picks up on directions led by the likes of Wells Fargo, that takes online banking right into the core space that was once dominated by Personal Finance Managers (PFM) such as Quicken, and Microsoft Money. This report looks at the more advanced personal finance features largely ignored by banks so far, including: categorization, sorting, reporting and long-term storage have largely been ignored by banks. Furthermore, integrated personal finance is less costly to provide than bill pay and may be an even more powerful a retention device. Source: Online Financial Innovations: Internet Strategies for Financial Institutions. PERSONAL FINANCE … Continue reading Online Banking Report: Why "My Spending Report" trumps free bill pay