In July, AOL co-founder Steve Case hinted to us about the possibility of his new business venture, Revolution LLC, launching a credit operating platform. Now, The Wall Street Journal reports it's happening. The internet-based payment system would cut merchants' costs by about 75 percent. Revolution Money will provide an online money-transfer service and a credit card (RevolutionCard) with lower interchange fees. According to Revolution, merchants pay about 1.9 percent per transaction. The company says with its new payment system, those merchants could slash fees to 0.5 percent.

Revolution also is launching Revolution MoneyExchange--a payment platform for social and instant messaging networks. With it, consumers can safely transfer funds to anyone, even merchants, for free. So far, the program is only available in beta form to an invitation-only list, but it should be available to the masses before 2008.