The cybersecurity firm Gemini Advisory recently announced a large-scale data breach at Saks Fifth Avenue and its sister company Lord & Taylor, compromising 5 million credit cards. While the forensic investigation is still under way, it appears that the breach was likely caused by malware on the parent company’s point-of-sale …
Read More »Equifax Agrees to Operational Changes in Its Data-Breach Agreement With Eight States
Equifax Inc. disclosed Wednesday that it has entered into a consent order with eight states that requires it to improve its data-protection practices in the wake of the huge data breach last year at the national credit-reporting agency. The breach compromised personal data on approximately 148 million consumers, including Social …
Read More »Account Takeovers And Digital-Goods Fraud Attacks Show No Signs of Abating
Merchants selling digital goods were dealt a heavy blow last year as the fraud rate for the category soared 167%, finds the Fraud Attack Index from online-fraud prevention specialist Forter and the Merchant Risk Council, a merchant group that addresses fraud prevention. Released Tuesday, the index also found that account …
Read More »TrustCommerce Announces an Integration and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 6/27/18
Captiva MVP Restaurant Partners LLC, operator of the PDQ fast-casual chain, reported that a hacker accessed its computer system through a technology vendor’s “remote connection tool” and may have compromised an undisclosed quantity of payment card numbers, cardholder names, expiration dates, and verification values. The breach, which affected all but three …
Read More »The Supreme Court’s Controversial Balancing Act in the AmEx Anti-Steering Case
With its Monday decision upholding American Express Co.’s anti-steering rules, the U.S. Supreme Court unleashed a tide of press speculation about just how payment card pricing, rewards, and network rules will be affected. At this point, however, only a few things are clear. The first is that AmEx chief executive …
Read More »A Divided Supreme Court Upholds AmEx’s Anti-Steering Rules
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that American Express Co.’s anti-steering rules for merchants do not violate federal antitrust law. The conservative majority’s decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, caps a case that dates back to 2010 and involves merchants who wanted to steer merchants to …
Read More »Consumers Increasingly Pay Billers Directly Rather Than Through Bank Sites
Payment volume through biller-direct Web sites continues to grow at the expense of bank bill-pay sites, according to new findings from Boston-based Aite Group LLC. Some 73% of the online bill payments made by consumers in 2016 went through biller-direct sites, up from 62% in 2010, according to Aite. Meanwhile, …
Read More »Eye on Contactless: Mobeewave Eyes Small Canadian Merchants; U.K. Payments Double
Canadian fintech Mobeewave could see its contactless-payment service for Samsung smart phones expand thanks to a new agreement with National Bank of Canada. And this week a British financial trade group announced that contactless payments in the United Kingdom jumped 97% in 2017. Dubbed National Bank Easy Pay, the service …
Read More »Mobile POS Is Poised to Soar Worldwide As Rising Card Acceptance Stokes Merchant Demand
The mobile point-of-sale revolution is picking up momentum, despite having started nearly a decade ago with the first attachable card-reading devices for mobile phones. Projections from United Kingdom-based Juniper Research released this week indicate the installed base of mobile point-of-sale devices of all kinds worldwide—including integrated technology from major vendors—will …
Read More »Details on Visa Europe Outage and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 6/20/18
Merchant processor Paysafe North America said that by mid-July it will start offering same-day settlement to small U.S. merchants. The service will be offered in collaboration with Company.com, a services platform for small businesses, and Ingo Money, a push-payments provider. Visa Inc.’s 10-hour service interruption in Europe on June 1 …
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