Visa Inc.'s announcement this week that starting this summer it will no longer require signatures for transactions of $25 or less at most U.S. merchants heralds a policy that will result in faster and smoother transactions but could also undermine the payments industry's move toward contactless technology. “The merchant proposition …

The number of identity-fraud victims increased by 12% last year to 11.1 million from 9.9 million in 2008 and was 37% higher than in 2007, and the estimated amount of fraud hit $54 billion, the highest since 2006. That's according to Javelin Strategy & Research's 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report. …

The explosive growth of social networks and online games in the U.S., which in the past year or so has drawn the attention of a number of micropayments startups, has now attracted a foreign processor with deep pockets and the ability to offer a wide array of payment options. France's …

In expectation that legislation regulating online gambling in the U.S. will pass, the United Kingdom-based payments-processing company UC Group Ltd. has opened a U.S. subsidiary, SecureTrading Inc., headed by three former MasterCard Inc. senior executives. UC Group, a provider of online payment-processing services, is an advocate for regulated Internet gambling …

Americans now spend more than half a trillion dollars a year on PIN-debit cards, but the merchant-acquiring industry is still adjusting to consumers' embrace of point-of-sale debit. At the same time, debit card pricing is shifting from a simple, flat-fee model to a more complex one, which is raising the …

USA Technologies Inc. and a dissident shareholder group buried the hatchet last week, but their settlement agreement sets some high hurdles for the provider of vending-machine card readers and remote networking transaction-processing services to clear. If not, the dissidents could reassert themselves?just as competition for processing payments from unattended locations …

Same-store sales on credit and debit cards continue to drop for small businesses, indicating that any signs of recovery from the recession have yet to be seen by either Main Street merchants or their acquirers. Sales on cards for small merchants fell 12.15% in the fourth quarter last year compared …

A busy year is on tap for the PCI Security Standards Council, with revisions due not only for the main Payment Card Industry data-security standard but also standards governing PIN-entry devices and payment-processing software applications. Plus, the PCI Council plans to take a close look at two widely discussed security …

The bank card networks have weighed in with their latest earnings reports, and operating statistics within them show debit continues to boom while the unprecedented, recession-induced credit contraction over the past year may be nearing its end. At Visa Inc., which reported late Wednesday, U.S. debit payment volume hit $238 …

A growing emphasis by computer hackers on stealing payment card data from hotels and resorts and their increasingly sophisticated malicious software and attack methods are two highlights in a new report from security consulting and technology firm Trustwave Holdings Inc. Trustwave's Global Security Report 2010 summarizes findings from the Chicago-based …