J. Daly

When you're No. 1, everyone wants to knock you off. Visa USA knows.

Low funding costs and improving credit quality made 2003 the bank card industry's most profitable year in recent memory. Will the earnings waters remain tranquil in 2004?

The FACT Act updates the federal credit-reporting law and places new obligations on collection agencies, credit bureaus and card issuers. But the full impact of the law won't be known until the regulators have their say.

Two prominent collections-industry software vendors changed hands this summer, an indication that the market for accounts-receivable management software has growth prospects.

Thanks to the lowest funding costs since the early 1960s, credit card issuers in 2002 had their best opportunity in years to widen profit margins. Instead, rising loan losses caused the card industry's earnings to contract.

One never knows what little gems lie around the house, waiting to be discovered. Such was the case recently when I came across, in the clutter that occupies most of the lower level of our house, a 1963 passenger train timetable for the New York Central System, at the time one of the nation's largest railroads. I bought it a few years ago while attending a model train show with my railroad-enthusiast brother, then promptly set it aside.

Like so many other functions that generate a lot of paper, the process of handling disputed credit card transactions is rapidly moving onto the Internet.

Nacha's Project Action is on hold. Was the ambitious program too difficult to build, or did it threaten banks' revenue streams from Internet credit card payments? And what's next?

At great risk of personal embarrassment, I looked back to our January 2002 issue to see what I forecast for the upcoming year. Whew! I was off about a couple of things but right about some others, so at least I didn't look like a complete fool.