A survey of consumers released today reveals that while most say they are more informed about identity theft, they feel no safer from it than they did a year ago, and more consumers are reluctant to give online retailers personal data than was the case last year. The survey of …

Visa USA's increase in credit card interchange rates, announced today, are intended to help the giant bank card network keep its members' business in the face of recent efforts by American Express Co. to court banks as issuers of its cards, Visa says. As expected by many observers, Visa today …

Carrollton, Tex.-based Taco Bueno Restaurants Inc. has become the latest quick-service restaurant chain to begin accepting credit and debit cards. Paymentech L.P., a Dallas-based transaction processor owned by First Data Corp. and Bank One, announced today it will provide processing services for card acceptance at all 124 Taco Bueno locations, …

MasterCard International today announced it is acquiring TowerGroup, the Needham, Mass.-based research firm, from Reuters PLC for an undisclosed price. The 11-year-old TowerGroup, which focuses on payments-technology and financial-services research, will become part of MasterCard Advisors, a subsidiary through which the bank card company operates an existing research and advisory …

With its new real-time check-verification and settlement product announced yesterday, Star Systems Inc. will be offering merchants and transaction processors a service that converts paper checks to electronic transactions just as retailers and financial institutions are preparing for the advent of check-imaging technology. Though Maitland, Fla.-based Star, the nation's largest …

So-called bust-out fraud is an old credit card crime that's not going away, and currently it's responsible for about $800 million annually in largely unreported fraud losses. That sober estimate came this week during a presentation on worldwide transaction-system fraud given by John Schettino, MasterCard vice president for security and …

A new technology that fights counterfeit card fraud by allowing a sort of “fingerprint” comparison routine based on magnetic stripes is getting its first commercial application with shipments having started within the past few weeks of card-personalization machines enabled with the technology. Kiran Gandhi, vice president for Carson, Calif.-based MagTek …

MasterCard International plans by the end of the year to have in place a program to certify instant card issuance activity in the United States. The bank card company is testing an instant-issuance certification plan in Brazil now, and is concerned enough about perceived risk in instant issuance that it …

A new U.S. standard in the works now could dramatically cut the costs ATM deployers face in bringing their machines into compliance with the so-called Triple DES encryption requirement set by the bank card networks. As things stand now, banks and other deployers must distribute the Triple DES encryption key, …

The immediate reaction among industry observers to the disclosure last week that MasterCard International Inc. is raising its interchange rates on some credit card transaction categories effective April 2 was that the move is meant to recoup issuer income lost in the major debit card settlement reached last year. But …