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In the spin-the-bottle game of assessing blame for the massive debit card breach that has compromised an estimated 600,000 accounts, point-of-sale software developer Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc. late last week suddenly found itself the recipient of unwelcome publicity when its name came up in a Visa USA alert about card …
Read More »First Data’s Bailis Ponders His Strategy for Debit Cards, Services
Few people know First Data Corp. better than David P. Bailis. Starting in 1989, he worked on everything from health-care payments to e-commerce and held titles as diverse as general counsel and chief administrative officer. He retired in 2001 to dabble in his own financial-services consulting businesses. But he came …
Read More »Huge Hack Threatens to Cool off Torrid Growth of PIN Debit Payments
Security experts warn that the recently exposed case of widespread debit card fraud could jeopardize the growth of PIN debit. Debit card transactions secured by PINs have been growing by 20% or more annually in recent years, more than twice as fast as credit cards. “I think it is a …
Read More »Losses Could Top $1 Billion from Debit Card Hack, Hurting PIN Debit
The widening damage from the unfolding debit card hacking incident is challenging the conventional wisdom that PIN-based debit cards are inherently more secure than credit cards, which rely on signatures?though it still doesn't make a case for chip cards. That's according to one expert whose latest estimates are that this …
Read More »A New Tactic Aims at Thwarting Efforts to Shut Down Phishing Sites
A new tactic has been discovered that lets fraudsters keep their online crimes going even as authorities are identifying and shutting down phishing sites. RSA Security Inc., whose RSA Cyota Anti-Fraud Command Center discovered the new tactic, says it is called a smart redirection attack and is intended to make …
Read More »As Banks Reissue Debit Cards, Experts Warn of More Compromises
More banks are reissuing debit cards as suspect transactions pop up throughout the United States and other countries, according to media reports this week. Investigators believe many of the transactions could be related to a security breach at a merchant facility in California that happened late last year, but the …
Read More »U.S. Encode Readies a CD/Mag-Stripe Card for Online, POS Use
A small San Diego company is working on a new type of transaction card that combines the characteristics of a compact disk and a mag-stripe card, allowing consumers to perform both credit and debit transactions online as well as at physical points of sale. U.S. Encode Corp., incorporated in 2002, …
Read More »How Interchange Wars Are Lending Impetus to Instant Issuance
Heightened tensions over interchange fees are helping to fuel expansion in the market for so-called instant issuance of payment plastics. Englewood, Colo.-based Dynamic Card Solutions, which produces software that lets banks issue Visa- and MasterCard-branded debit cards on the spot to customers, says its revenue grew 53% in 2005, without …
Read More »The FTC Puts One Security Compromise to Rest, But More Await
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday a proposed settlement with the successor to CardSystems Solutions Inc., the merchant processor that gained notoriety last year as the source of the largest known compromise of financial data to date. The settlement, which did not include fines, arose out of the FTC's …
Read More »Metavante Appoints New Health-Payments Chief, Looks for Big Growth
Eyeing an expanding opportunity in debit card processing for health-related accounts, Metavante Corp. has appointed a president for its Healthcare Payments Solutions division. John M. Reynolds, a 20-year veteran in banking and a former executive at Wells Fargo Institutional Trust Service, takes over the unit, which was formed only last …
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