Markham, Ont.-based publisher Lloydmedia is preparing to launch Canada’s first magazine for the financial transactions industry. Payments Business, a bimonthly trade magazine on transactions, cards and electronic bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP), will launch in January 2010 with a controlled circulation of 12,000.

The initial circulation list includes companies and government organizations involved in the transactions supply chain, from billing to credit management and customer data-driven applications. Industry professionals will be able to opt-in for the magazine and its e-newsletter through a website that will launch in November.

Although specific advertisers have not yet been confirmed, Lloyd says Payments Business is targeting three general groups: card issuers (including banks), payment processors, and equipment suppliers (of items such as debit terminals).

The magazine itself will include news on marketing trends, technological advances and corporate mandates that affect the payments industry. According to publisher Steve Lloyd, the idea grew out of the company’s existing publications, Direct Marketing, Contact Management and the weekly e-newsletter Click! Weekly.

“The other magazines we publish touch on the area a little bit, and over time, we began to notice that it’s an area that has lots of things changing,” Lloyd says. “These days, people are using their cell phones to pay for things, for example, so the whole mobile transaction market is changing.”

According to eMarketer Inc., online shopping sales in Canada between 2007 and 2012 are projected to grow by 65%, reaching $22.8 billion annually. Lloyd says in an industry changing this fast, editorial coverage of this kind is in demand.