Data breaches at restaurants and hotels are nothing new, but a just-out report from Verizon Communications Inc. shows how extensively the hospitality industry gets hit by hackers. New York City-based Verizon, which besides telecommunications has a large business in investigating data breaches, says in its latest annual breach study that …
Read More »Billers Turn Their Attention to Improving Payments on Mobile Devices
Creating statements optimized for mobile devices is the biggest area of development for new digital payment options from billers, according to recent research done for payment technology provider ACI Worldwide Inc. The study by London-based technology researcher Ovum in December and January gathered responses from 1,032 executives in 10 countries …
Read More »Many Merchants Expected To Erase Signature Requirements From Their Checkout Counters
Payment card networks and merchant acquirers still don’t have a solid read about how many merchants will take advantage of the networks’ new signature-optional policies that take effect this month. A merchant trade group, however, expects more than half of its members will cease requiring cardholder signatures at the point …
Read More »Data Thieves Increasingly Target Service Providers, Trustwave Reports
Point-of-sale integrators, help desks, and other computer-related service providers for businesses, look out—the hackers are after you. The new Global Security Report 2018 from Chicago-based Trustwave says service providers were involved in 9.5% of the 700-plus data compromises the firm investigated in 2017. In 2016, service providers played a role …
Read More »Chicago Commuter-Rail Agency Will End Online Ticket Sales in Part To Avoid PCI Costs
Metra, the commuter-rail agency in the Chicago area, will cease selling tickets on its Web site in late June, partly to avoid payment card security expenses. Riders, however, will still have a mobile-ticketing option through the Chicago Transit Authority’s Ventra fare system. Metra, which operates 11 transit lines and carries …
Read More »MoneyGram Cements Its Ties With Walmart Through New International Service
Wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. and Walmart Inc. announced a new international service Tuesday dubbed Walmart2World that the companies say enables recipients to get funds in as little as 10 minutes. The long-time partners also renewed for two years the contract under which Walmart offers MoneyGram’s various money-transfer and bill-pay …
Read More »Saks, Lord & Taylor Breach Exposes 5 Million Card Numbers
Data from 5 million stolen credit and debit cards is coming up for sale, and a cybersecurity firm says the cards were used at retailers Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, and Saks’ off-price chain Saks Off Fifth. Many details about the breach remain unknown, including the extent to which …
Read More »Private-Equity Firm Advent International Merges Clearent With an ISV
Advent International, a private-equity firm with considerable experience in the payments space, announced Friday that it had acquired a majority stake in the big independent sales organization and payment processor Clearent LLC and merged it with FieldEdge, an independent software vendor serving home-services contractors. Advent had also bought FieldEdge. Financial …
Read More »A Fed Study Probes Payments Fraud and Security Vulnerabilities
The Federal Reserve announced Thursday that work began this month on a new study to measure fraud and associated costs to the U.S. payments system as well as identify fraud’s causes and contributing factors. After a competitive bidding process, the central bank hired Boston-based The Boston Consulting Group to do …
Read More »New WiseKey Technology Connects the IoT With Its WiseCoin Cryptocurrency
In a mashup of the Internet of things and cryptocurrency, authentication and data-security firm WiseKey International Holding Ltd. announced Thursday that it has developed a payment service for IoT-connected devices and its own WiseCoin. Geneva, Switzerland-based WiseKey said it has tested the system, dubbed IoT CryptoCurrency Smart Payment, on a …
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