News

January, 2015

• 12 January

  Obama Proposes National Breach Notification And Privacy Laws in Wake of Data Thefts

  In the wake of a barrage of data thefts affecting tens of millions of U.S. citizens, President Barack Obama on Monday proposed national legislation to regulate breach notification. Other legislation proposed by Obama would ban companies from selling student data to other organizations for non-educational uses and from using information …
• 11 January

  Hard Times at Softcard: Mobile-Payments Venture Lays Off 60 Employees

  Softcard, the mobile-payments venture of Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA, has laid of 60 employees in a restructuring, according to media reports. The layoffs raise questions about the future of Softcard, formerly known as Isis, which has had trouble gaining consumer and merchant acceptance for its near-field communication-based …
• 9 January

  Can EMVCo’s Aegis Rescue a Floundering 3D Secure for Online Payments Security?

  Card-not-present fraud is the bane of any merchant that operates an e-commerce site, and EMVCo, a standards body for the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) specification, hopes its newly assumed oversight of the 3D Secure authentication standard can help them. Operated as Visa Inc.’s Verified by Visa and MasterCard Inc.’s SecureCode, 3D Secure …
• 8 January

  BluePay Acquisition Bolsters Integrated POS Efforts As New Exec Takes Over

    Merchant-services company BluePay Processing Inc. has bought CDI Technology Corp., which provides e-commerce software and payment services for companies that use business-management software such as Oracle JD Edwards and SAP. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Lombard, Ill.-based CDI integrates e-commerce and payments into business-management software, often called …
• 8 January

  Merchant Processor Global Payments Reports Strong Second-Quarter Financials

  By Digital Transactions News Staff Bolstered by solid growth in the U.S. and Asia, merchant processor Global Payments Inc. on Thursday reported total revenues of $697.3 million for its second quarter of fiscal 2015 ended Nov. 30, up 10% from $634.1 million a year earlier. Second-quarter net income increased only …
• 8 January

  With EMV’s Liability Shift, Acquirers Face Consumer-Fraud Risk for the First Time

  With a crucial deadline just 266 days away, the payments industry is starting to look at just what kind of fraud liability—and how much fraud—merchant acquirers will have to assume if their merchants aren’t ready to accept Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards by October. There’s about $6 billion annually in lost, …
• 7 January

  ISO Startup Blue Star Hopes Ties to NFL’s Dallas Cowboys Will Boost Its Prospects

  The National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys organization is lending its name recognition to a new merchant-services company, Blue Star Payment Solutions. Frisco, Texas-based Blue Star intends to build its brand based on its affiliation with the Dallas Cowboys as one of the companies owned by the Jones family, says Jerry …
• 7 January

  Latest Stats Show the ACH Growing Steadily As Players Mull Faster-Payments Proposal

  Traffic on the automated clearing house network continues to climb at a steady clip as financial institutions and other users of the system mull over a proposal to speed up payments from next-day to same-day settlement. In the quarter ended Sept. 30, overall volume on the ACH grew 4.15% year …
• 6 January

  Rash of Chain Breaches Casts Spotlight on Unique Vulnerabilities of Franchised Businesses

  News of a possible card-data breach at chicken-sandwich chain Chick-fil-A caps a year that saw a number of franchised businesses compromised and throws into relief what some experts say is the unique security vulnerability of the franchise business model. Franchised chains, in which so-called owner-operators run stores under a license …
• 6 January

  Bitcoin Exchange Bitstamp Shuts Down While It Sorts out Effects of a $5.2 Million Breach

  A breach Jan. 4 at Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp resulted in the loss of approximately $5.2 million worth of the digital currency and caused the exchange to shut down while it sorts out the after-effects. That’s according to notes posted to Bitstamp’s Web site Monday and Tuesday. The breach targeted one …