Fraud & Security

• The U.S. Marshals Service announced that bidder registration began today for its Aug. 22 online auction of 2,719.33 Bitcoins forfeited to the government in various criminal, civil, and administrative cases. The Bitcoins, which will be sold in one block, are worth nearly $1.61 million at today’s price of $590.25 …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The notion of the federal government auctioning off Bitcoin seized in drug busts and other actions looks like it’s an idea with some staying power. The U.S. Marshals Service on Monday scheduled yet another auction of the virtual currency in the wake of the four it conducted …

• Prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp. reported that second-quarter net income more than doubled from a year earlier to $7.78 million on a 2% increase in operating revenues to $173.5 million. While Green Dot’s active card count of 4.28 million was down 11% from a year earlier, purchase volume …

Implementing so-called chip-and-PIN authentication for U.S. credit cards would cost merchants and card issuers more than $7 billion but prevent only about $850 million in lost-and-stolen card fraud over five years, a new report from Aite Group LLC says. The report, “Chip Cards in the United States: The PIN, PINless, …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A relatively new program geared at shoring up data security at small merchants is making progress toward a crucial January deadline, but not without some full-throated grumbling, if comments and questions at an industry trade show this week in Grapevine, Texas, were any indication. The program, …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Criminals stepped up their attacks on e-commerce sites in the second quarter, producing more than 69 million rejected transactions, a stunning 90% increase from the same quarter a year ago, according to the Q2 2016 Cybercrime report recently released by ThreatMetrix. Of these transactions, 23% were payments, …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Most mobile wallets in North America have struggled to win adoption and usage among consumers, and some apps backed by mobile networks have already fallen by the wayside. But one factor that could promote mobile payments is likely to come from a surprising source: restaurants. With …

• For its second quarter ended June 30, MoneyGram International Inc. reported transactions on its digital money transfer service grew 9% and accounted for 15% of all money-transfer transactions handled by the company. Revenue for the service increased 17% and accounted for 13% of overall money-transfer revenue. • Because of …

• A Michigan gas station has begun accepting the AnyWhereMobile Payment Network app from developer MShift Inc. and Team One Credit Union, the first financial institution to offer the mobile-payments product. Team One plans to bring acceptance of the app, which works with VeriFone Systems Inc.’s Commander Site Controller solution, …

The percentage of U.S. consumers who experienced credit card fraud in the past five years leaped from 41% in 2014 to 47% in 2016, according to the “2016 Global Consumer Card Fraud: Where Card Fraud Is Coming From” report released Tuesday by Aite Group LLC. The report surveyed more than …