Plenty of resources for payment pros

As usual, the payments industry is jumping with activity this week. Following are several items that caught our eye this morning:

• Trustwave launched the Trustwave TrustKeeper Community, a social network for small business security. The social network is moderated by Trustwave and is designed to foster understanding and acceptance of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance and data security best practices.

  "For many small businesses, implementing an effective security plan and maintaining PCI compliance can be a complex and mystifying process," said Doug Klotnia, General Manager, Compliance and Risk Management at Trustwave. "Our new social network helps demystify that process by opening communication among small businesses, financial institutions and security experts in an effort to help businesses both achieve PCI compliance and solve other data security issues as technology and payment processing evolves."

  For more information, visit www.trustwave.com .

• Billtrust just released its first Billtrust B2B Sales Index. It will be published monthly and is intended to provide "an indicator of current and trending U.S. economic conditions, based on a reliable sampling of business-to-business (B2B) invoice activity," the company stated. To see the report, go to www.billtrust.com/b2bsalesindex .

• First Data Corp. released its SpendTrend analysis comparing data from July 2 through 30, 2013, to that of the July 3 through 31, 2012, period. SpendTrend tracks same-store consumer spending at U.S. merchant locations. Types of spending included credit, signature debit, PIN debit, electronic benefit transfer, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks. "July's dollar volume growth of 7.7 percent marked a 12-month high and an uptick from June's growth of 7.1 percent," the company wrote about the analysis. "Overall transaction growth of 6.5 percent hit a 10-month high as the long Independence Day weekend, and warm and dry weather across much of the country were strong catalysts for the pickup in shopper traffic." For more details, visit www.firstdata.com/fdc_site/homepage_v2/spendtrend-monthly/feature/index.html .

• Customer loyalty specialist Aimia Inc. released Reigniting Retail Loyalty Programs, a new white paper that offers five rules for enhancing customer loyalty: 1. Focus your data efforts; 2. Develop loyalty personas; 3. Connect the "data dots" across channels; 4. Battle short-term discounting with loyalty data; and 5. Re-imagine recognition and rewards. The paper can be downloaded at blogs.terrapinn.com/total-customer/2013/07/22/download-whitepaper-reigniting-retail-loyalty-programs/?elq=172e0a8e54714591954fc392b4e507e0&elqCampaignId=5212 .

For more of the latest developments in payments, see News From the Wire in the left-hand side of our home page.

Editorial Note:

Whether you want to upgrade your POS offerings, find a payment gateway partner, bone up on fintech regs or PCI requirements, find an upcoming trade show, read about faster payments, or discover the latest innovations in merchant acquiring, The Green Sheet is the resource for you. Since 1983, we've helped empower and connect payments professionals, starting with the merchant level salespeople who bring tailored payment acceptance and digital commerce tools, along with a host of other business services to merchants across the globe. The Green Sheet Inc. is also a proud affiliate of Bankcard Life, a premier community that provides industry-leading training and resources for payment professionals.

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