Credit Cards

By Jim Daly U.S. credit and debit card issuers will have about 150 million more EMV chip cards in circulation by year’s end than predicted last summer, according to the latest forecast from an industry group promoting the conversion of U.S. card payments to smart cards. The Payments Security Task …

Confidence in the security of new payments systems is not high among businesses executives, finds the “Data Security in the Evolving Payments Ecosystem” report released Monday by the Ponemon Institute LLC. In the report, commissioned by Experian, 36% of respondents said they are not confident about the security of a …

By Jim Daly Leading wire-transfer providers The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc. both reported big growth in their online businesses in the first quarter while merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. posted strong increases in charge volume. • They’re still a small portion of its overall business, but …

Transaction volumes, revenues and profits all headed up smartly for MasterCard Inc. in the first quarter. But MasterCard on Wednesday also reported laying out nearly $900 million in rebates and incentives during the quarter to build future volume in an increasingly competitive global card marketplace. In the United States, total …

By Jim Daly The Canadian government’s move last week to strengthen its Code of Conduct for the payment card industry and the European Union’s approval in March of rock-bottom interchange rates for credit and debit cards has observers wondering if more regulation is in store for the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry. …

By Jim Daly Continuing its effort to get a massive data breach behind it, discount retailer Target Corp. announced Wednesday a $19 million settlement with MasterCard Inc. to compensate banks and credit unions for the fraud and card-reissuance costs they incurred for their MasterCard-branded credit and debit cards affected by …

  Criminals have developed a new family of point-of-sale malware that hides in plain sight, riding along with core processes inside Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, says Chicago-based Trustwave Holdings Inc., which uncovered the malware during a recent U.S. Secret Service investigation. Dubbed “Punkey” because of the “unkey” command within its …

White Lodging Services Corp., an independent hotel-management firm, this week announced a “suspected breach” of the point-of-sale systems for the food and beverage operations in 10 hotels it manages. This incident follows a breach of the POS systems at the food and beverage locations in 14 White Lodging-managed hotels in …

  Chicago-based Trustwave Holdings Inc. has a new owner. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. is buying privately-held Trustwave for $810 million, Singtel announced Tuesday. Singtel placed an $850 million value on Trustwave. It will buy 98% of the firm with Trustwave chairman and chief executive Robert J. McCullen retaining 2%. Trustwave, which …

  As the U.S. payment card industry continues its monumental shift to EMV chip card technology, one group of merchants will lag. More than 70% of small merchants will not be EMV compliant by Oct. 1, the date the card networks have set to shift liability for point-of-sale fraud to …