Open Sourcing of Card Networks?

Last week, I came across an interesting headline -

Visa Inc. today announced a significant enhancement to the Authorize.Net Developer Center, a resource that enables independent developers to create applications supporting electronic payments and related services for major payment networks including VisaNet."

Is it now open season for card networks?  Since inception, card networks like Visa, MasterCard and Amex have been closed 'high secure' networks with access limited to member banks.

Looks like with the rapid 'Iphone' applicationing of the world, card networks can no longer afford to remain out of bounds to external innovation. What this means now is that mobile service providers, alternative payment providers can tag along to the Visa network and promote a wider coverage to their innovations.

Five years hence, we may be looking at a completely open sourced payment network world - cloud computing at its best.

The recent charge by Twitter into payments - Square- and American Express taking over Revolution Card are signs of our looking to a 'cloud networked' payment world.

Hopefully, this revolution will benefit consumers and merchants who can pay anywhere with anything at anytime.