As the EMV reality squeezes card fraudsters out of the card-present business, they are all crowding into the online racket. U.S. retailers should be ready. With retailers seeking advice about this, the first question I ask usually raises eyebrows. I don’t ask about protocols or gadgets. I ask to check …

Visa Inc. has announced new data-security requirements for small merchants, one of which says that beginning Jan. 31, 2017, merchant acquirers must annually validate compliance by their so-called Level 4 merchants with the Payment Card Industry data security standard. Other new Visa requirements involve qualified integrators and resellers, or QIRs. …

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee on Tuesday afternoon was scheduled to consider a data-security bill that is drawing fire from merchant trade groups and consumer advocates, but which has the support of the American Bankers Association. H.R. 2205, the Data Security Act of 2015, was introduced last …

Visa Inc. ended months of speculation with its decision, announced last month, to buy its European counterpart, London-based Visa Europe Ltd., in a cash, stock, and earn-out deal valued at $23.4 billion. The deal without question holds huge potential, but questions linger about its financial impact. “We’re delighted to be …

With nearly half of all holiday shopping expected to be conducted online, attention is turning to the first line of defense against fraud: the humble password. As it turns out, this bulwark isn’t nearly as strong as it could be, according to a study released Tuesday by Dashlane Inc., a …

By John Stewart In the wake of the arrival of EMV chip cards and ahead of the holiday shopping rush, the Shazam debit network has launched a mobile feature that lets cardholders disable their debit cards should they be lost or stolen. While networks like Discover Financial Services have advertised …

Leading U.S.-based ATM manufacturer NCR Corp. announced Thursday that affiliates of private-equity firm The Blackstone Group L.P. will invest $820 million into the company for a 17% stake. NCR says it will use the investment to help fund a $1 billion share repurchase and speed its transformation into an integrated …

The payment card world is bracing for a spike in card-not-present fraud now that the U.S. is an EMV country. What’s to be done? The U.S. became an “official” EMV country Oct. 1 by virtue of its point-of-sale liability shift. As credit and debit cards with EMV chips and payment …

By John Stewart As the holidays approach, retailers and banks can expect to sell more electronic gift cards than ever, if research released Monday by Bankrate.com is any indication. The survey, which covers 60 general-purpose and proprietary gift cards, shows two-thirds are available as e-cards, up from 59% last year. …

Technology enabling consumers to deposit checks by snapping pictures of them on their smart phones and uploading the images through their mobile-banking apps has been around for more than five years, but mobile remote deposit capture very much remains a new product for many banks. An April-May survey by Alpharetta, …