... slight drift, another article from today

Payments Technologies Vie For Banks' IT Dollars
http://www.epaynews.com/index.cgi?survey=&ref=browse&f=view&id=1147439455861413176&block=

from above:

Payments revenues at European banks typically represent 10 per cent of annual revenues, while in the US, this figure is nearer to 40 per cent

... snip ...

some difference in the revenue demographics between US and Eureope with regard to payment operations

Iang wrote:
> Off to Washington DC they trotted and fairly soon on, the
> message filtered back to Microsoft - that's not a good
> idea, pick on someone else's soft underbelly.

a congressman's speech on the floor of the senate about the bank modernization act said that the purpose of the bill was if you are already a bank, you can remain a bank and if you aren't alerady a bank, you can't be a bank, and more the bill was to specifically prevent microsoft and wal-mart from becoming banks.

a couple other articles from today:

Small Banks Adopt a Wide Spectrum of Electronic Payments
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=944

Home Depot: No Designs on Payments with Deal to Buy ILC
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=945

from above:

Less than a month after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. held three days of unprecedented hearings on Wal-Mart’s application to open a Utah ILC, Atlanta-based Home Depot this week disclosed a definitive agreement to buy EnerBank USA, a Salt Lake City-based ILC with $75 million in net loan assets.

... snip ...

Ah, the old "what is banking?" question. I was first triggered to this quixoticism by Dave B, who mentioned that up until the early 1980s or so, the UK legislation still had it that a bank was what did banking, and banking was what banks did. I don't know what it was replaced with.

Surprisingly, this still seemed to be quite prevalent in the US. I recall reading such circularity in a circular from the FDIC giving permission for a bank to enter a particular business (I think certificate authorities).

OTOH, some bank acts are quite clear about banking. One I read was almost model perfect, in that it said the business of banking is that of taking deposits as borrowings from the public and lending those deposits to others of the public, with differing terms.

Which of course is not the payments business.

another aspect of the payment industry landscape:

Interchange Fees: The tipping point
http://www.csnews.com/csn/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425619

from above

Fed up with out-of-control interchange fees, retailers are fighting back with concerted legal and educational tactics -- and, in some cases, proactive offensives of their own.

... snip ...

http://www.epaynews.com/newsletter/epaynews322.html

from above:

Convenience store operators can make more money on a 12-ounce cup of coffee than they can on a 12-gallon tank of gas. Credit card fees now account for almost half of a typical store's expenses - more than labor.

... snip ...

this is sort of another facet of Boyd OODA-loops ... not only do you cycle the loops faster ... but during the loop you may also view a subject from a number of different aspects.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd2

Plastic under attack. Battling lawsuits and new rivals, MasterCard and Visa may face a lower-growth future.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/29/8377961/index.htm

....

ECOM Finds Issuer for Anonymous, Disposable Prepaid MasterCard
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=954

from above

... allows the company to sell the cards to consumers through merchants like cans of soda or other merchandise, then process transactions almost immediately at any location that takes MasterCard

... snip ...