In ecommerce and money news

PlaySpan, the leader in global monetization solutions for 1,000 online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, today announced that its Ultimate Game Card has expanded into Brazil, Turkey, and several other countries. In Turkey, Ultimate Game Card will be available in over 3,000 Internet gaming cafes, as well as multiple Turkish web sites and portals offering convenient local payment options. Turkey Read more

Barclaycard releases waterslide game for the iPhones. That game has 9 levels. Player needs to steer a character down the waterslide as fast as possible and collect points simultaneously. A new game will be available for available in the middle of June for free. Paul Troy, head of advertising and sponsorship in Barclaycards, said: "The launch of the iPhone "Waterslide Extreme" game is a first in financial services. Read more

73 % of consumers surveyed in the United States, France and Great Britain say that more stringent standards are required before they will trust the security of their credit card transactions. And almost half (46 %) are concerned about the potential for a security breach when paying with their credit or PIN-based cards, according to an international survey released by the Secure POS Vendor Alliance (SPVA), a non-profit business organization created by Hypercom, Ingenico S.A. Read more

A recent study commissioned by the National Retail Federation and conducted by BIGresearch shows that during June and July 2009 just 14% of Americans are planning to purchase patriotic merchandise (flags, clothing, decorations or bumper stickers). Meantime, about half of consumers say the prices for the gasoline will have a significant impact on their Independence Day spending. Read more

Google Apps users will now be able to share templates together. The new feature is one of the updates that Google has made to its online applications product. The company already has a template gallery for Google Docs where people can share templates such as presentation designs and spreadsheets. But now, Premier and Education Edition Apps users can share templates privately, but only with other people in their domain. Read more

iPhone has a unique feature which enables users to upload a photo or video directly from the phone to a MobileMe gallery and there is no need to remember an account password. However, one drawback arises when there is more than one MobileMe account set up in Mail on the iPhone: the phone chooses the account.  Read more

Citi, US banking giant, partners with MasterCard, Nokia, Vodafone and ViVOtech in order to launch contactless mobile phone payments services in Bangalore, India. “Tap and Pay” trial allows users to make credit card payments via their mobile phones. The process of payment will occur by waving users’ NFC-enabled phones over contactless readers at the point of sale at participating merchants. Read more

Online payment services provider Paysafecard has partnered with the Spanish bank Caixa Galicia and the Spanish processing partner TelePay to extend its prepaid services offering. Now Internet users can purchase vouchers for online shopping at any of the bank's cash machines. Read more

Dutch bank ABN AMRO former employees set up their own company in the Netherlands and Britain, called Aethra Asset Management. The new company will service institutional clients and retail investors too. Aethra’s first products will be created by employees who focus on tactical asset allocation and European growth stocks. Read more

Wells Fargo revealed its plans to invest $208,000 in the US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce (USPAACC) Education Foundation for a national research study of the characteristics and interests among business owners in the six largest Asian American ethnic groups: Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese. Read more

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) made recently its intervention in the battle between collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers Australia and local councils. It demanded the Federal Court judge hearing a dispute to leave it in order to make submissions in that case. Read more

On Thursday the US Department of Justice confirmed that it is investigating a settlement involving Google Book Search for possible violations of the Sherman Act, a US antitrust law, following months of speculation that the agency had its eye on the service. The Authors Guild filed a lawsuit against Google, charging the search giant with copyright infringement for scanning books without always getting the approval of authors and publishers. Read more

During Friday trading gold prices moved up slightly, steadying above $931 per ounce as the dollar tumbled against the single currency, with deeper concerns over the US economic outlook also underpinning the metal. By 7:09 a.m. EDT Spot gold stood at $932.65, that is up from $928.65 lateThursday in New York. Previously, bullion surged to $933.50. After a week of tracking an unsteady dollar, gold is on track for a 0.6% fall on the week, bouncing back further from a 4-month high near $990 hit in early June. Read more

Friday, greenback edged down from its early Asian session's new multi-day highs against euro and franc. Dollar also melted down versus the British pound. At the same time US dollar crept higher against the Japanese yen. Against the European currency, the US dollar lost ground after hitting an 8-day high of 1.3931 during early Asian deals on Friday. Thus, at 12:30 am ET, dollar touched a low of 1.4001 euro, with 1.415 seen as the next resistance level. EUR/USD pair closed Thursday’s North American deals at the level of 1.4004 Read more

Yoichi Suzuki, director-general of the Japanese foreign ministry's economic affairs bureau and one of the country's main coordinators for the G8 summit, said that major countries should support the dollar as the key international currency, although emerging nations may discuss a new global reserve currency on the sidelines of the G8 summit in l`Aquila next week. Read more

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said that China hopes for diversification of the international currency system in the future, and it would be "normal" for the issue to be raised for discussion at next week's Group of Eight summit in Italy. According to G8 sources, Beijing had asked for a debate on proposals for a new global reserve currency at the G8 summit and the issue could be referred to briefly in the summit statement. Tell your opinion

First Data and India's new age private sector bank YES BANK set up collaboration in a move to establish jointly a widespread network of ATMs across various cities in India. Thus, on Thursday, Yes Bank and First Data signed a Memorandum of Understanding for an innovative ATM rolling out programme.  Read more

Today it became known that City Bank signed an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the State of Washington Department of Financial Institutions. The Bank has been dealing with the impact of the recession and the slowdown in residential housing sales in 2008 and has been working with the FDIC and the DFI to address the issues impacting the Bank. Read more

During a presentation at the SyScan conference in Singapore on Thursday, security research Charlie Miller said that Apple is working to patch an iPhone vulnerability that could allow an attacker to remotely install and run unsigned software code with root access to the phone. The attack in question exploits a weakness in the way iPhones handle text messages received via SMS. Tell your opinion

Cyber crooks have worked out one of the most sophisticated click fraud malware applications to date. The Trojan code - dubbed FFsearcher by security firm SecureWorks - plugs into a Google API that allows webmasters to add a Google-powered search widget (called "Google Custom Search") to their website. In normal use, search results made via the widget are displayed alongside Google AdSense ads, with webmasters receiving a small fee every time a surfer follows an ad. Tell your opinion