Counterfeiting is still the king of U.S. payment card fraud, according to the Federal Reserve’s recently released Payments Study 2016, but probably not for long thanks in part to the coming of EMV chip cards and the aftereffects of data breaches. Counterfeit fraud accounted for 44% of U.S. payment card …
Read More »Identity Fraud Climbs to an All-Time High As Card Fraud Rises ‘Across the Board’
By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Payments professionals who suspect fraud is getting significantly worse were confirmed in their suspicions Wednesday with a report indicating identity fraud hit an all-time high in 2016, affecting some 15.4 million U.S. consumers. That’s up nearly 18% from 2015 and represents a one-third increase from the …
Read More »Credit Cards Compromised in 19% of Data Breaches, Researchers Find
Credit card numbers were involved in just under one-fifth of the 4,000-plus data breaches worldwide reported in 2016, data-security services provider Risk Based Security Inc. reported Wednesday. RBS says the latest release of its annual Data Breach QuickView found that 4,149 data breaches occurred or became publicly known in 2016, …
Read More »The Fed’s Faster Payments Task Force Nears the End of Its Proposal Reviews
The Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force is in the final stages of reviewing 19 proposals to speed up U.S. electronic payments, Fed executives tell Digital Transactions News. The faster-payments initiative is part of the Fed’s broader Payment System Improvement project that also addresses security and efficiency issues. The Fed …
Read More »Report: Internet of Things Could Present an ‘Unmanageable Cybersecurity Risk’
Like other technology forecasters, Juniper Research in a new report predicts the Internet of Things is poised for explosive growth. But the IoT also represents “an unmanageable cybersecurity risk” unless its developers take preventative action, Juniper says. In its report, “Internet of Things for Security Providers: Opportunities, Strategies, & Market …
Read More »Dwolla Lines Up $6.8 Million in Funding and other Digital Transactions News briefs
• Payments provider Dwolla Inc. announced a $6.85 million round of funding led by Union Square Ventures and Foundry Group. The funds will be used to expand sales and account-management operations at the company’s Des Moines, Iowa office. Dwolla also said it is moving its white-label products into a new collection of application …
Read More »Western Union Will Pay $586 Million to Settle Feds’ Claims of Lax Anti-Fraud Controls
The Western Union Co. will pay $586 million to the federal government to reimburse consumers victimized by fraud as a result of the company’s allegedly lax supervision of agents and anti-fraud and money-laundering controls. The settlements announced Thursday are a result of investigations that covered payments involving the smuggling of …
Read More »For Online Retailers, Holiday Sales Were Up, But So Was Attempted Fraud, Report Shows
The bill continues to come due for the frenzy of orders online merchants processed over the holidays. While card-not-present transactions were up 16% for the holiday season compared to the same period in 2015, fraud attempts increased fully 31%, according to data released Tuesday by ACI Worldwide, a Naples, Fla.-based …
Read More »Operation Choke Point Hard To Justify, Sessions Says, and other Digital Transactions News briefs
• More than 100 new merchants have signed a letter to U.S. House of Representatives leaders, bringing the total to 768 since the letter began circulating in November, urging them not to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment, which put a cap on debit card interchange and set debit transaction-routing requirements. Dodd-Frank is …
Read More »First, the Binge, Then the Hangover. On Tuesday, ‘Chargeback Day’ Hits Merchants
By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Merchants are quite familiar with days like “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday,” but now they’re waking up to a much less joyful day—“Chargeback Tuesday.” It’s the day when merchants, and online sellers in particular, get hit with the highest number of chargebacks they’ll see in a …
Read More »