By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Security jitters have hit the payments industry, and it’s no wonder. The arrival of new and sophisticated ways to spoof identities, coupled with the rapid rise of mobile usage for banking and payments, has created a minefield for security professionals charged with guarding accounts and the …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews An investigation by hotel operator InterContinental Hotels Group PLC found malware had been installed on servers that processed payment cards at restaurants and bars in 12 IHG-managed properties, the company said. And a federal appellate court told a lower court to investigate whether the class of customers …

Cyberfraud is maturing into a stable, highly profitable business, adopting modern management principles and investing heavily in innovation. It has already evolved into an impressive, sophisticated, well-managed, capitalistic environment, composed of bold hack-innovators, hack-services providers, hack analytics, hack market promoters, and some hacking line soldiers, who are the ones who …

The Federal Reserve’s recently released 2016 Payments Study shows that counterfeiting was the biggest type of U.S. card fraud last year. But other types of fraud, especially card-not-present fraud, are rising quickly, thanks in part to the coming of EMV chip cards and the aftereffects of data breaches. The Fed study says counterfeit fraudaccounted …

Chatbot developer Kasisto Inc. has agreed to provide a so-called smartbot for Varo Money Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of a mobile-only banking app. Both the app and the bot are in beta testing and expected to launch early next year. The new bot, called Val, is based on conversational …

Fintech—Patti Hewitt, a.k.a. Paymentgal, observes that financial institutions need to reinvent the retail account to offer more than just the simple liquidity they’ve provided “for centuries.” She sees the bank-customer relationship itself as up for grabs. The reason is the rise of fintech, well-funded non-bank financial-services startups with deep technology …

NetSpend, the prepaid card unit of processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), is facing a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed Thursday over allegations the company deceptively marketed reloadable debit cards. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges NetSpend promised “immediate access” to …

While simple to merchants and consumers, the rapidly growing payment-facilitator model involves multiple considerations for developers and acquirers. Some of the best ideas in payments come around only once, but many, such as the payment-facilitator model, come around again when they better suit merchants and the payments industry. To put …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews If the payments industry is expecting a sharp rise in online fraud, it can stop holding its breath. It’s already happening, and with the official holiday-shopping season getting under way, it’s going to get a lot worse. Yet, just as attacks are growing more numerous, funding …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The new version of the 3-D Secure online-authentication technology is better for merchants and consumers and thus likely to get more adoption than the old version, according to security experts. EMVCo, the chip card standards body owned by the world’s six leading payment card networks, released 3-D …