Payments Watch

I have made a few changes to both the look and feel of Payments Watch, and the general organization of the site:

• To do my part for the environment, I changed the highlight colour in the site’s colour scheme from red to green.  It is very good to go "green" these days, so I just wanted to do my part ;-). Besides, I think it looks better, and after all, green is the (stereotypical American-centric) colour of money (or should I say "color"?).
• The "sidebars" were getting too busy and quite long, limiting my ability to tag/index the articles as the site grows. I have moved the categories to a separate Topics page accessible from the main menu under the Payments Watch logo. I have also moved the archives to a separate page, also accessible from the main menu.
• I got rid of the numerous newsreader/rss chiclets.  I have left behind the simple Feedburner subscribe button which handles subscribing in all of the popular newsreaders seamlessly.

This is a very cool site: the Chase Paymentech Pulse Index. This index tracks online shopping activity in the United States during the November to December holiday season. According to the site, payments generated by 10 of the nation’s 30 top Web merchants are monitored for payment transactions as they occur.
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Credit cards have often added value and protection to the consumer by way of zero liability features for fraudulent card use and insurance on items purchased using a credit card. Could a payment system provide consumers protection from the myriad End User License Agreements (EULA’s) seller’s demand we accept (especially in the internet age where we typically check the “I Agree” box without actually reading the agreement or terms of service which may run on for thousands of words)?
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Proof of Deposit (”POD”) is the verification of the dollar amount on a check or draft being deposited. This verification is done by comparing the handwritten amount on the check/cheque to the amount written on the accompanying deposit slip. Proof of deposit is an important step in check processing, yet has alluded full automation (unlike the sorting of checks via MICR technology).
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Over on Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed blog, he has a link in the research he is catching up on regarding how check clearing through correspondent banks may have contributed to bank collapses during the depression.
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