Wachovia Corp., some of whose debit card holders have been victimized by a data breach that happened several months ago, began sending notices and replacement cards to those customers recently because it began to see signs of fraud after months of monitoring the accounts, the bank says. Although Wachovia's action …

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest issuer of contactless credit cards in the country with 7 million in circulation, is now adding contactless payment technology to its debit cards. The banking giant, which brands its contactless cards “blink,” has plans to re-issue 1.8 million debit cards with the Visa mark …

The drumbeat of data-breach disclosures continued Friday with the news that information linked to about 65,000 individuals?including credit and debit card data–were exposed when a burglar broke into a locked office in a YMCA facility in Providence, R.I., last week and stole a laptop containing the sensitive member information. According …

Because of the efficiency, savings, and convenience they bring to a system traditionally choked with paper, debit cards linked to flexible-spending accounts (FSAs) are turning into a hot growth market in electronic payments. Issuers will put 6 million of the cards in circulation in 2006, up 50% over last year …

The final quarterly filing from iPayment Inc. as a public company contains a report of a double-digit gain in profit at the Nashville, Tenn.-based merchant acquirer as well as a terse reference to what amounts to continuing fallout from the huge data breach last year at Atlanta-based merchant processor CardSystems …

The possibility that Bank of America Corp. could start its own payment card network and brand poses some big risks and would bring big expenses for the Charlotte, N.C.-based banking giant, though it could enable BofA to differentiate itself in a mature card industry, analysts say. Reports that BofA chairman, …

Leading payment card processor First Data Corp., in the midst of a reorganization and spin-off of its Western Union money-transfer business, late Thursday reported first-quarter earnings of $373.3 million, down slightly from $374.5 million in 2005's first quarter. Revenues grew 10% to $2.70 billion from the year-earlier period's $2.47 billion. …

Seeking to remove a roadblock standing in the way to eventual mass consumer usage of mobile phones equipped with a form of contactless technology called near-field communication (NFC), MasterCard International this week unveiled a service that will allow cell-phone users to download their account data and other critical information to …

The widening damage from the unfolding debit card hacking incident is challenging the conventional wisdom that PIN-based debit cards are inherently more secure than credit cards, which rely on signatures?though it still doesn't make a case for chip cards. That's according to one expert whose latest estimates are that this …

More banks are reissuing debit cards as suspect transactions pop up throughout the United States and other countries, according to media reports this week. Investigators believe many of the transactions could be related to a security breach at a merchant facility in California that happened late last year, but the …