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January 29, 2010 New to NewsFilter? Click here to subscribe. In this Issue In Other News This Day in History (1936) U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elects first members On January 29, 1936, the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson.
The Hall of Fame actually had its beginnings in 1935, when plans were made to build a museum devoted to baseball and its 100-year history. A private organization based in Cooperstown called the Clark Foundation thought that establishing the Baseball Hall of Fame in their city would help to reinvigorate the area's Depression-ravaged economy by attracting tourists. To help sell the idea, the foundation advanced the idea that U.S. Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown. The story proved to be phony, but baseball officials, eager to capitalize on the marketing and publicity potential of a museum to honor the game's greats, gave their support to the project anyway. Click to read more. Advertisement
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GDP Expands: Best economic growth in six years 1/29/10 CNN.com The U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in more than six years during the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a government report Friday. The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, rose at a 5.7% annual rate in the fourth quarter. That was much stronger than expected and provides another sign that a recovery in the economy is taking hold. The U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in more than six years during the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a government report Friday. Click to read more. Will the Success of Texting Donations Lead to Rapid Mobile Payment Adoption? 1/25/10 TMCNet.com While many abhor the devastation in Haiti and pray that it will not happen again, in terms of relief and support it could not have come at a better time. With the technology in place that allows individuals to make a financial contribution in just a few steps on their cell phone or smartphone device, millions of dollars have already been raised. As reported in CNBC, the large number of consumers that have used texted messaging to make a charitable donation to the victims of this earthquake signifies the dawning of a new age of adoption for mobile payments. Click to read more. Calif. officials probe credit card interchange fees 1/27/10 LegalNewsLine.com California officials, under the leadership of a Democrat running for state attorney general, are probing rising credit card interchange fees. State Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, and the Assembly Banking and Finance Committee he leads is investigating interchange fees that credit card companies charge businesses and consumers in the course of transactions. The credit card industry collects about $5 billion from credit- and debit-card fees charged in California. Most of the interchange fees in the state are collected by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. Click to read more. How Merchants Deal with Rising Credit-Card Costs 1/27/10 The Wall Street Journal Stroll into the Ula Café, a neighborhood coffeehouse in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and you might notice an unusual sign prominently posed on the cash register. The note informs customers that every time they pay with plastic, it costs the coffee shop about 25 cents. Please, asks the sign, reserve use of your credit cards to pay for purchases of $10 or more. Click to read more. Apple and the Dawn of i-Commerce 1/28/10 PYMNTS.com It will take a couple of iterations, but the iPad will open new frontiers for "e-transactions". Yes, you read it first on PYMNTS.com, the new member of the commerce alphabet soup will be "i-commerce"! That's what I believe Apple really started yesterday with the introduction of the iPad. Granted, Apple's announcement, given the amount of hype and anticipation was not overwhelming. Click to read more. Credit card charge-off rate slips in December 1/26/10 AxcessNews The rate of consumer charge-offs by credit card companies fell in December to 10.32% compared to 10.56% the prior month, though rating agency Moody's says investors should expect to see credit card charge-off rates climb in the coming months. Click to read more. Europe's winding road towards a payment revolution 1/25/10 EurActiv.com Payments in 31 European countries are about to get faster, cheaper and easier once the EU's ambitious Payments Services Directive is fully translated into national law. However, member states have begun to opt out of some parts of the rulebook, making a level playing field harder to attain. In practice, all banking institutions will have to deliver payments as quickly as their competitors, regardless of where they are located or whether they are domestic or cross-border payments. Click to read more. Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode security in question 1/28/10 InfoSecurityMagazine.com The 3D Secure method of online card transaction protection – aka Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode – may not be as secure as the banks are telling us, as a team of security researchers claim there are multiple weaknesses. The security researchers at the University of Cambridge include Steve Murdoch and Professor Ross Anderson, both of whom are respected in their field, and who have penned a seven-page paper detailing their findings. Click to read more. Different technologies vie to protect payments 1/25/10 DigitalIDNews.com End-to-end encryption, dynamic cryptograms and EMV are all options being considered to protect payment transaction data in the U.S. The goal is to prevent data breaches, such as the one with Heartland Payment Systems in 2008, and make it easier for merchants and processors to secure the information. Click to read more. Is online PIN debit more secure? 1/28/10 The Green Sheet As a debate unfolds about the competing merits of PIN verses signature debit, a company called Acculynk has emerged as a pioneer in the use of PIN debit online. Acculynk's product, called PaySecure, gives consumers the option of using PIN debit when they make online purchases. Click to read more. Online Trust Alliance Release Framework For Protecting Consumer Data 1/28/10 DarkReading.com In recognition of Data Privacy Day, a worldwide initiative to promote the importance of data and consumer protection, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) has released a comprehensive planning guide to help businesses improve data governance and prepare for potential data breaches. According to OTA, research and data from the Identity Theft Research Center, data breaches involving personally identifiable information (PII), increased over 623% this past year from only 35.7 million in 2008 to over 222.4 million in 2009. Click to read more. Discover allies with Korea’s BC Card 1/24/10 The Green Sheet Discover Financial Services today announced an agreement with BC Card, the leading Korean payment network, which will allow BC Card cardholders to utilize the Discover, Diners Club International and PULSE networks for international purchases and cash access outside of Korea. Click to read more. TSYS Expands Relationship with U.S. Bank 1/26/10 TSYS.com TSYS announced today that it has signed a new long-term agreement with U.S. Bank. As part of the agreement, TSYS will continue to support the bank’s commercial card payment services, as well as become its exclusive partner in providing card processing services for the bank’s Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) benefit cards, issued by its Healthcare Payment Solutions business line. Click to read more. No major PCI DSS revision expected in 2010 1/27/10 SearchInfoSecurity.com PCI Security Standards Council general manager Bob Russo said the next revision of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), due in October, will contain clarifications but no major changes to the standard. "There won't be any surprises," Russo said. "We're more likely to see guidance documents." Click to read more. Mobile Payment Systems Are Adapting, Developing 1/28/10 PracticaleCommerce.com Mobile payment processing can help merchants take advantage of the one item people rarely leave home without: a cell phone or mobile device. Accepting payments by text verification has been in practice since 2006 when companies like PayPal began offering a mobile option that allows users to proceed through a checkout using SMS [short message service]. Click to read more. Mobile Apps Force Retail Banks to Rethink Their Roles 1/28/10 InternetEvolution.com Bank of America has been in the news of late with some mind-blowing numbers on new adoption rates on their iPhone app. The bank says some 200,000 or more customers each month are subscribing to this new service. When I recently posted on Twitter that banks were slow to innovate around mobile, I got a bunch of replies suggesting that mobile banking app deployment like BofA’s was evidence that my position on this was wrong. So I thought I should clarify. Click to read more. |
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