Nearly 283 million Visa-branded credit and debit cards issued by U.S. financial institutions now have an EMV chip, Visa Inc. reports. In addition, some 1.1 million U.S. merchant locations that accept Visa cards now take chip cards. In the latest of the payment card networks’ updates on the U.S. chip …
Read More »Eye on Washington: ATM Deployers Slam Operation Choke Point; NRF Wants PCI Probe
A trade group of independent ATM deployers on Thursday issued a report blasting the federal government’s Operation Choke Point targeting high-risk merchants, and the nation’s leading retailer association called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the PCI Security Standards Council on antitrust grounds. While mostly affecting a few merchant …
Read More »The PCI Council Updates its Payment-Processing Software Rules
The PCI Security Standards Council on Friday released version 3.2 of its Payment Application Data Security Standard, which sets rules for payment-processing software. The new PA-DSS aligns with the recently updated main security standard, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard version 3.2. Today’s update was expected, as the Wakefield, …
Read More »Fraud and Chargeback Reduction Are Top of Mind for E-Commerce Payments Execs
Minimizing fraud is by far the top payment concern of e-commerce merchants, according to findings from the Merchant Risk Council’s newly released global payments survey. Some 46% of all merchants surveyed about payments and e-commerce issues affecting them in 2015—51% of MRC members and 35% of non-members—ranked managing e-commerce fraud …
Read More »Expenses From the Home Depot and Target Data Breaches Surpass $500 Million
This week’s revelation by The Home Depot Inc. that it has incurred $263 million in expenses from its 2014 data breach means that the home-improvement retailer’s breach costs, together with those of another big-box retailer, Target Corp., now total $554 million. In a quarterly regulatory filing Tuesday, Atlanta-based Home Depot …
Read More »Two Green Dot Directors Up for Re-Election Resign Just Before Contested Annual Meeting
Two long-time members of Green Dot Corp.’s board of directors who were up for re-election suddenly resigned Sunday, just ahead of the company’s contested annual shareholder meeting Monday that potentially could lead to the ouster of company founder and chief executive Steven W. Streit. The Pasadena, Calif.-based prepaid card provider …
Read More »Streit Retained, but Two of Dissident Shareholder’s Nominees Elected to Green Dot Board
Green Dot Corp. shareholders re-elected chairman and chief executive Steven W. Streit to the company’s board of directors Monday after a proxy fight, but they also elected two nominees from dissident shareholder Harvest Capital Strategies LLC, which has called for Streit’s ouster. Harvest Capital, which says that Streit is not …
Read More »The EFT Networks Broaden Their Offerings in The Fight for Debit Market Share
Once known exclusively for enabling PIN-based debit card transactions at ATMs and then at the point of sale, the electronic funds transfer networks are broadening their payment options for merchants as they compete with global networks Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. for debit transactions. For example, payment processor First Data …
Read More »A Processing Glitch Hits Green Dot Just Days Before Contested Shareholder Meeting
Holders of the Walmart MoneyCard issued by Green Dot Corp.’s bank subsidiary have resorted to social media in the past few days to complain of not being able to check account balances or use their cards to make purchases and withdraw money from ATMs. The extent of the glitch is …
Read More »Rewards Cards: Rewarding for Issuers, but What About Merchants?
Rewards and loyalty cards are now common in the U.S. payments landscape, but new research findings show just how popular such cards have become. A study by Phoenix Marketing International says 93% of all credit card spending is now done on rewards cards, up from 88% in 2013. A separate …
Read More »