Two week ago I made of few predictions for Payment Systems in 2009 ( you can read that post here) Here are the two that I can cross off and pat myself on the back for.

Gift Cards: You or someone that you know will have a gift card, merchandise credit/refund card for a merchant that is no-longer is business in 2009. Gift givers will take note of this and consider giving cash rather then gift cards in holiday 2009 season.

From the Circuit City website: Circuit City would like to thank all of the customers who have shopped with us over the past 60 years. Unfortunately, we announced on January 16, 2009, that we are going out of business.

Will Circuit City stores continue to accept Circuit City GIFT CARDS?

Yes, customers holding Circuit City gift cards may redeem them at full
value at our stores during the liquidation sales. Once the stores are
closed and the company is out of business, the gift cards will have no
value.

PCI Data Security Breaches: There will be data breaches of cardholder data in 2009. We will see more innovative attacks that replace those that were effective before PCI compliance was a wide spread.  Even organizations that are validated "PCI Compliant" will not be exempt. We will see attacks that adapt and change around current PCI Controls.

I blogged about Heartland Payment Systems here and shared my thoughts on the situation here, Yes this breach was at a PCI Compliant and Validated service provider, and the attack appeared to be one that was sophisticated and adapted around the current PCI Controls.

• Coinstar Machines Turn Change into iTunes Credit – TibBits – get gift cards from coin counting machines
• Beware: Circuit City Gift Cards – Payment News – Use it or lose it, Retail Gift Cards for struggling retailers are best not to hold on to.
•  Discover To Participate in TARP, Becomes Bank Holding Company – Payment News – DiscoverBank
• Discover PCI Levels Defined:  See: Here (Treasury Institute), and here (GreenSheet).  The Short of it is that Discover has aligned their PCI Merchant Levels to that of MC and Visa.
• ATM Skimmers are getting sneakier – Network Security Blog – Video of an wireless ATM Card Skimmer
• MasterCard dispels myths, highlights benefits of payment networks – (GreenSheet) – MC has released a paper "Benefits of Open Payment Systems and the Role of Interchange" with some links to audio and video – some good basic stuff here on a payment transaction.