A payments-industry security group formed earlier this year is going through the rather dry procedures of establishing a charter and electing leaders. But one of its first projects could get pulses beating a little faster: a simulated mass attack on databases containing payment card and demand-deposit account information. The exercise …

The year 2012 could mark a milestone for the prepaid card industry. That's when load volume on so-called open-loop, or general-purpose, prepaid cards could surpass load volume on closed-loop cards, if predictions by Mercator Advisory Group Inc. prove true. Maynard, Mass.-based Mercator recently released several prepaid market reports, the latest …

A new data-security service announced on Tuesday by heavyweight players in payment processing and data security?First Data Corp. and EMC Corp.'s RSA unit, known as The Security Division of EMC?is expected to boost a technology called tokenization, the replacement of cardholder account numbers with surrogate numbers or “tokens.” Since the …

Merchants turned up the heat on banks and the bank card networks on Thursday by releasing a report showing that interchange fees in the U.S are much higher than in other countries, and arguing that policymakers in the U.S. should regulate interchange as have their counterparts overseas. “We want to …

Retailers have complained the loudest about the cost of complying with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, but comments Tuesday at a health-care payments conference indicate that medical providers also incur considerable expense to secure their card-accepting payment systems. PCI-related costs come to about $100,000 a year for …

Rising processing costs and Visa Inc.'s mandate that point-of-sale terminals be upgraded to do Triple-DES encryption for PIN-based debit transactions are prompting gas sellers to rethink PIN debit acceptance. Fuel sellers are talking about dropping PIN debit because of the hike in cost for authorization, says Branden Williams, director of …

The biggest merchants are moving toward 100% compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, but compliance among small card acceptors remains much lower, according to second-quarter statistics from Visa Inc. None of that is a surprise given PCI compliance trends in recent years. But just how far …

In yet another move that could shake up the financial world and boost electronic payroll cards, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is eliminating paper checks for employees. Under the new payroll program, employees who don't have direct deposit will be issued a MasterCard-branded payroll card through the First Data Money Network Payroll …

Canada's Interac Association PIN-debit network this week announced a deal with the Houston-based Pulse network that will let holders of Pulse, Discover, and Diners Club cards withdraw cash at Canadian ATMs. More such deals with other networks are likely as Interac seeks to let foreigners use their cards while visiting …

As an attorney for the merchant plaintiffs predicted earlier this summer, Visa Inc. disclosed Monday that it plans to prepay the remaining $800 million of its settlement obligations with merchants under the so-called Wal-Mart debit card class action for a discounted $682 million. If the plan gets court approval, the …