News

December, 2014

• 2 December

  Security Firm Predicts Hackers Will Target Apple Pay and ATMs in 2015

  What’s that big, juicy new target out there for cyber-hackers? Apple Pay, of course. And don’t forget ATMs, either, since many deployers have yet to upgrade machines running old, increasingly vulnerable versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP operating system. Apple Pay and ATMs are included on Woburn, Mass.-based data-security services …
• 1 December

  Cyber Monday Online Sales up Nearly 9% As Apple Continues to Outpace Android

  Well into the annual Cyber Monday shopping frenzy, online sales are up nearly 9% compared to last year, while mobile devices are driving more traffic and sales, continuing a trend established on Thanksgiving and on Black Friday. That’s according to IBM Corp.’s Digital Analytics service, which is reporting periodically on …
• 1 December

  Health-Care EFT Transaction Volume Via the ACH Grows Nearly 180% in a Year

  Health-care electronic funds transfers via the automated clearing house network increased by 177% from October 2013, the first full month a new rule intended to spur such payments was in effect, through September 2014, ACH governing body NACHA reported Monday. Herndon, Va.-based NACHA says transaction volume in September was 15.5 …
• 1 December

  Bitcoin Acceptance: Growing Fast, but Still a Niche for Merchant Acquirers

  Once perceived as a payment method for drug dealers and shady merchants craving anonymity, the Bitcoin virtual currency is now accepted at approximately 75,000 merchants worldwide, and their numbers are growing fast, according to a new report by First Annapolis Consulting Inc. Even so, it will be a while before …
• 1 December

  Parking Garage Operator Says Card Readers at 17 Locations Were Hacked

    Parking-garage operator SP Plus Corp. says card readers at 17 garages it operates were hacked this fall, with one breach extending back to April. Chicago-based SP Plus says the company that provides and maintains the payment card systems in the 17 garages—10 are in Chicago, three in Evanston, Ill., …

November, 2014

• 28 November

  Online Sales Jump on Black Friday And Thanksgiving, With Apple Far Ahead of Android

  With Black Friday results nearly in the books, the holiday-shopping season has officially started, though some observers argue it really began this year on Thanksgiving day itself with a flurry of mobile commerce. Much of that commerce is being driven by users of Apple Inc. devices. Controlling by far the …
• 26 November

  Pulse Sues ‘Long-Time Monopolist’ Visa Over Post-Durbin Debit Actions, Seeks Rival’s ‘Restructuring’

  Over the past several years, during his conference calls with analysts to review Discover Financial Services’ quarterly earnings, chief executive David W. Nelms occasionally took swipes at Visa Inc.’s efforts to maintain its dominant debit card market share in the wake of the Durbin Amendment, which severely undercut Visa’s Interlink …
• 25 November

  CFPB Rules May Aid Larger Prepaid Card Issuers: Report

    The 870-page tome of proposed rules issued Nov. 13 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to govern prepaid cards may end up benefitting the top prepaid card issuers, says securities-rating agency Fitch Ratings. The regulations would require so-called “Know Before You Owe” disclosures and aim to improve consumers’ access to account …
• 25 November

  Merchants May Need a Map To Navigate Multiple Token Schemes: Analyst

    No doubt merchants and the payments industry understand the value of removing valuable cardholder data from merchant payment systems via tokenization. Doing so, however, may complicate merchants\' data-security practices and carry costs, suggests Avivah Litan, vice president and analyst at advisory firm Gartner Inc., in a blog post. Tokenization …
• 25 November

  E-Commerce Spending for November Up 11% Over 2013, comScore Reports

  Electronic-commerce spending from work and home desktop computers from Nov 1-23 hit $17.5 billion, up 11% from $15.8 billion in the same period a year earlier, Internet metrics firm comScore Inc. reported Tuesday. Most e-commerce spending is charged to credit and debit payment cards, so the early results for the …