By the time the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games commence in late July, the city's transportation authority expects to have upgraded its city-wide bus system to enable an "open" payment platform that accepts contactless, network-branded credit and debit cards for fare payment. The current Oyster card system, which is a proprietary, "closed" prepaid card system used across London's entire public transit network, will be modified to also allow bankcards embedded with near field communication (NFC)-enabled chips to be used to pay for public transportation around the city.

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The Electronic Transactions Association intends to launch the payments industry's first professional certification program this year. The new Certified Payments Professional (CPP) designation will set a uniform standard for professional performance in the payments industry. To that end, the ETA has just added a credentialing section to its website to inform members about the certification program and its relevance to employers. "The launch of the CPP program will be an important milestone for the payments industry and for ETA," ETA Chief Executive Officer Carla Balakgie said in a statement.

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Research conducted by The Global Prepaid Exchange concludes that players in India's prepaid card market have reason to be optimistic. The global association forecasts that the market opportunity for prepaid cards in India will be $ 9.3 billion in 2011, with travel, gift, payroll and government benefit cards leading the way.

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Former Sen. Christopher Dodd, D.-Conn, who served in the Senate for more than three decades, will speak during the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting & Expo coming up May 10 through 12, 2011, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego. Dodd chaired the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs until his retirement in January 2011. Dodd is most notable for his role as a chief architect of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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It was reported in the Manila Standard Today that the Philippine's Department of Justice endorsed a proposal put forth by a member of the South Asian country's congress to require prepaid cell phone buyers to register their phones with authorities as a crime prevention method.

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The two leading card brands posted strong results for the quarter that ended in December 2010. Revenue at Visa Inc. jumped 14 percent year over year to $2.2 billion for its first fiscal quarter, which ended Dec. 31. The results were driven by double-digit growth in service, data processing and international transaction revenue.

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U.K.-based PSE Consulting said the European prepaid card market is mving toward "critical mass." By 2017, the market will reach 160 billion euros (over $200 billion) in annual spend, representing six billion transactions, according to research conducted by the consulting firm.

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A three-part webinar series exploring the ripple effects of alternative payments on the payments industry is being presented by Jim McIntosh, Vice President Strategic Initiatives at Inetco Systems Ltd. In part two, Alternative Payments: What's Your Opportunity or Risk?, McIntosh identified the potential benefits and risks facing merchants, payment processors, network providers and issuers when considering alternative payment solutions.

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Visa Inc. announced an agreement to acquire online game monetization platform provider PlaySpan Inc. According to Visa, the card brand will pay $190 million in cash for the privately held company, with potential future earnouts if certain performance milestones are reached. The acquisition is expected to close in Visa's 2011 fiscal second quarter.

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According to two reliable sources – First Data Corp.'s SpendTrend and the U.S. Federal Reserve – consumer credit card activity was up during December 2010 and January 2011. And some industry experts feel this may indicate consumer confidence is on the rise.

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In January 2011, Washington State Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, introduced a package of legislation designed to combat fraud, abuse and waste within state-run public-assistance programs. One of the bills, Senate Bill 5327, would reportedly limit the use of electronic benefits transfer (EBT) prepaid cards to locations deemed beneficial to the child of the parent receiving financial assistance.

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Cyber attackers targeting computers used by Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. – the company that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market – apparently didn't gain access to the company's trading systems but did manage to infiltrate its Director's Desk portal, a web-based tool used by directors of companies to share governance information. According to a statement released by Nasdaq, the company had "detected suspicious files on the U.S. servers unrelated to our trading systems and determined that our web facing application Directors Desk was potentially affected."

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Opinions of industry experts suggest rumors that Apple Inc. will introduce contactless payment enabling near field communication (NFC) technology in its new versions of the iPad and iPhone are more than speculation. The rumors began with a Jan. 25, 2011, article on Bloomberg.com that cited Richard Doherty, Director of technology assessment and market research consultancy Envisioneering Group, as saying that Apple's near-future plans for its two popular mobile devices included NFC.

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TXTPower.org, a Philippines-based advocacy for cell phone users and "netizens," posted a blog denouncing governmental efforts to force prepaid mobile phone users to register subscriber identity module (SIM) cards as a crime deterrent.

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The Federal Reserve Board's proposed rules regulating debit interchange will be the subject of a Feb. 17, 2011, hearing by the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Financial Institutions. The hearing begins at 10 a.m. EST. In December 2010, the Federal Reserve released its draft proposal for debit interchange rules under the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

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On Jan. 31, 2011, NetSpend Holdings Inc. signed a multi-year agreement with The Bancorp Bank Payment Solutions Group, whereby The Bancorp Bank division will serve as NetSpend's new issuing bank for both new and existing card programs.

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The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) is now accepting nominations for election to its board of advisors, and ISOs are encouraged to participate. Bob Russo, General Manager of the PCI SSC, said it is critical that the board of advisors, which helps shape and direct the overarching Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) and its two complementary standards, reflect the diversity of the global payments system. "We rely really heavily on this board of advisors to give us industry input," Russo said. "The more cross-industry and global involvement in the process, the wider the perspectives are to the input that's reflected in [the standard]."

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