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MasterCard Inc. plans to pay off its remaining $400 million settlement obligation to retailers over debit card acceptance early for a discounted $335 million, according to a filing the card network made on Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Attorneys for the retailer plaintiffs have signed on to the …
Read More »Travel Agents Prepare to Fight United on New Card-Acceptance Policy
A move by United Air Lines Inc. to shift to certain travel agents the costs and other responsibilities for ticket sales on credit cards has the industry in an uproar and has prompted a leading trade association to file a letter with the U.S. Department of Justice asking the agency …
Read More »Price Tag for End-to-End Encryption: $4.8 Billion, Mercator Says
Demand is booming for better payment card security as a result of the many data breaches of recent years, and the solution being touted more than any other is “end-to-end encryption.” But a new report from Mercator Advisory Group Inc. asserts that the term is imprecise and implementing the technology …
Read More »Discover’s Transaction Volumes Hold Up in a Turbulent Quarter
With the credit crisis still blowing at gale force, Discover Financial Services managed to grow its second-quarter transaction and dollar volume thanks mostly to its Pulse PIN-debit network and Diners Club International more than offsetting weak credit card volume. Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover reported Thursday that it handled a total of …
Read More »Two More Congressional Bills Aim at Interchange Regulation
U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin's introduction this week of a Senate companion to U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.'s Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2009, along with a little-noticed bill introduced last month in the House, bring to three the number of interchange bills pending in the Democrat-controlled Congress. And while …
Read More »Rising Fees Could Be Culprit As Fewer Doctors Accept Credit Cards
While credit card acceptance is making inroads in a slew of new markets like transit and parking, it turns out the plastic is losing ground among physicians. Some 32.7% of doctors' offices do not accept credit cards, up almost 4.5 percentage points from a year ago, according to a survey …
Read More »Security Issues Weigh Most Heavily with Acquirers, Research Says
Security issues weigh more heavily on the minds of executives with merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations than they do among any other payment card industry sector, according to new research from Aite Group LLC. Some 43% of acquiring executives rated data security, including compliance with the Payment Card Industry …
Read More »Merchant Groups Ask for Broad Changes in Letter to PCI’s Overseer
They're mad as hell, but whether they're going to take it any more isn't quite as clear. That's the essence of a letter seven merchant trade groups sent Tuesday to the PCI Security Standards Council and the five general-purpose payment card networks. The merchants want more input when the Payment …
Read More »Dead in ’08, Back in ’09: Congress Reintroduces an Interchange Bill
The Credit Card Fair Fee Act, a bill that would inject government into the interchange-setting process, has been resurrected after dying in committee last year. But this time there are more players around the table seemingly less inclined to sympathize with the defenders of the current bank card interchange system. …
Read More »Eye on Security: ‘Unique’ ATM Malware; Theft of Sony Card Data
Malicious software has been discovered on some Eastern European ATMs that has dangerous new powers to extract money as well as card data, according to a security executive. Meanwhile, Sony Corp. of America has confirmed that someone illicitly copied more than 5,000 credit card numbers of its customers who visited …
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