Nadia Oehlsen

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Olympic organizers expect some 500,000 foreign visitors to flock to China for the 2008 Summer Olympics, which will be held Aug. 8 to 24 in Beijing, Qingdao, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao. And they expect 1.5 million Chinese to attend.

Premium and super-premium cards help issuers gain card revenue, cross-sell financial products and thank customers for their business. But finding the proper mix of benefits, annual fees, and minimum-spending, income or asset requirements is a balancing act.

Text-based mobile payments got a boost in September when Google Inc. published a patent application for a system called Gpay. The application, filed in February 2006, says Google’s “text message payment system” would use a mobile phone or other device to transfer funds to other Gpay users. Gpay would draw funds from demand deposit, prepaid or credit card accounts.

Wireless-network connections at brick-and-mortar stores are the latest focus of payment-security angst.

But we’re big in Japan” long has been the joking excuse of rock bands based in Europe and the United States that are little-known in their home countries. The quote also seems to portray the history of biometric-payment applications.

Managers of public transit systems face many payment-related frustrations. They must fix malfunctioning fare boxes, card readers and kiosks, find ways to board passengers faster, and keep track of ridership and fares, all while trying to cut costs.

Automated voice-recognition systems and issuers' Web sites have reduced the need for cardholders to speak with live customer-service representatives. But person-to-person telephone interactions still can make or break a customer's loyalty to a card.

In the months after the TJX Cos. data-breach revelation rocked the payments industry in January, aftershocks continue to spread throughout the U.S. legislative and legal system. And as new laws attempting to prevent and respond to data breaches proliferate, so, too, do security-related lawsuits against merchants.

In March, NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association introduced new automated clearinghouse rules that allow merchants to keep paper checks presented at the point of sale. That way, they can decide later whether to route the checks electronically as ACH debits, digital images or as old-fashioned paper.

The environment continues to climb the charts of American popular concerns. And as with many pop-culture trends, the payments industry is keen to tap into the sentiment.

Web-based micropayments, purchases many experts define as $10 or less, passed a milestone when Apple Inc. announced in January it had sold more than 2 billion songs for 99 cents a pop through its iTunes online music store. Apple says 1 billion of those sales occurred in 2006 alone and that, as of January, it also had sold 50 million television episodes and more than 1.3 million feature-length films through iTunes.

MasterCard's recent incarnation as a public company is just one big event among many for Robert Selander, who is serving his 10th year as president and CEO of the payment network now known as MasterCard Worldwide.

The employee was long gone when bogus credit card charges started revealing his alleged crimes. Before he resigned in March 2006, James Wan Shing Kong had developed and managed software and related procedures for three Southern California customer call centers of CareCredit LLC. The Kettering, Ohio-based division of GE Money operates a card-based credit program for health, vision, dental and veterinary expenses not covered by insurance.

The employee was long gone when bogus credit card charges started revealing his alleged crimes. Before he resigned in March 2006, James Wan Shing Kong had developed and managed software and related procedures for three Southern California customer call centers of CareCredit LLC. The Kettering, Ohio-based division of GE Money operates a card-based credit program for health, vision, dental and veterinary expenses not covered by insurance.

Purveyors of commercial cards remain frustrated about why so many financial managers at businesses and government agencies still prefer paper payments to electronic ones. After all, electronic payments settle faster, and they enable firms to better track their spending, supporters of card-based payments contend.

Ownership changes are part of the payments business. But the PIN-debit market has seen more change than usual lately, as owners of the three highest-volume electronic funds transfer networks in the United States have announced sales plans or spin-offs.