Fraud & Security

How will 2019 be remembered for data breaches? Not well. The number of U.S. data breaches tracked by the Identity Theft Resource Center increased to 1,473, a 17% increase from 1,257 in 2018. Drilling into the payments sector, the increase was larger, according to a newly released report from the …

EBay Inc. plans to expand its managed-payments program dramatically starting in the second half of next year, officials said Tuesday. Introduced last year, the program depends on a gateway from Adyen NV and now operates in the United States and Germany. “We will go hard at not only the markets that we’re in …

PCI Pal, a payments provider for contact centers and other card-not-present businesses, launched PCI Pal Digital to secure transactions on digital channels such as Webchat, social media, email, and SMS.VPay, a digital claims-payment platform, reported a 30% rise in revenue from 2018 to 2019, fueled by a three-year, 180% customer …

The criminals behind ransomware attacks are becoming dramatically bolder. The average payment demanded in fourth-quarter attacks reached $84,116, more than double the average sum in the third quarter, according to the latest data from Coveware Inc., a Westport, Conn.-based cybersecurity firm that tracks data from cases it has handled. Worse …

Visa Inc. is among backers of an $80-million investment in Currency Cloud Ltd., whose software runs cross-border payments for financial apps, primarily in Europe. The funding round, co-led by Visa and SAP’s venture-funding unit Sapphire, included backing from Google. The funding follows Visa’s $5.3-billion deal to acquire Plaid, whose software enables fintechs …

WEX Inc., a processor in the fleet-fueling and corporate transaction market, said it has agreed to acquire eNett, a business-to-business payments software company specializing in the travel market, and Optal, a specialist provider of B2B transactions, for approximately $1.275 billion in cash and approximately 2 million shares of WEX common …

Payment firms that are used to choosing which PIN standard to audit against now have a much simpler choice. The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. and the PCI Security Standards Council have created a unified PIN Security Standard, replacing separate ones each organization previously maintained. The consolidation, announced Tuesday, should …

Affirm Inc., provider of point-of-sale installment credit, announced StubHub will use its service to sell event tickets that buyers can pay for over time.Chinese tourists in the United States increased their mobile-payments usage in 2019 to 3.1 transactions out of 10 from 2.8 the year before, according to a report released by …

Federal and European law-enforcement agencies last week seized the domain of WeLeakInfo.com, an online site that allegedly held 12 billion stolen records from 10,000 data breaches. The now-shuttered site’s data included names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, and passwords for online accounts, according to a news release from the FBI …

Ria Money Transfer, a subsidiary of Euronet Worldwide Inc., said it has an agreement with Belgian Postal Service group (bpost) to offer international money-transfer services through bpost’s network of 600 post offices.Restaurant The Crack Shack Enterprises LLC issued a data-breach notification for its Encinitas, Calif., location. Payment card information, including names, card …