Airlines lost more than $1.4 billion to online fraudsters in 2008, representing about 1.3% of their Web-generated revenues. Those are two key findings from a first-of-its-kind survey about air carriers' Internet-related fraud. Mountain View, Calif.-based CyberSource Corp. commissioned the survey with Airline Information LLC, which produces conferences and publications about …

Hypercom Corp. reports it is starting to see interest building in a service that allows merchants to inject new encryption keys in their point-of-sale terminals through network connections, eliminating the need to visit stores or send the devices out to have the job done. “It's been a pretty substantial effort” …

The Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is a favorite punching bag of merchants, but executives from Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. defended the set of security rules before an audience of independent sales organizations as the best tool available for keeping cardholder information safe from computer hackers. They also …

The White House is scheduled to dress down credit card issuers this week. That and current and possible bills in Congress increase the chances of new regulations on merchant acquirers, according to a lobbyist for the Electronic Transactions Association trade group of independent sales organizations and other merchant processors. Congress …

First Atlantic Commerce this week issued a strongly worded statement distancing itself from an investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice of offshore transactions. First Data Corp. last week said it was reviewing documents Justice filed in federal court seeking information on First Data merchants that sell or provide …

Contactless payments took another incremental step recently when USA Technologies Inc. struck an agreement with Visa Inc. under which Visa will subsidize the deployment of up to 4,000 of USA Technologies' card-accepting devices for vending machines. The agreement, potentially worth $800,000, is significant because it is the first between Visa …

Bling Nation Ltd. on Wednesday said it has completed a 10-day test of its alternative-payment platform, known as the Community Payment Service. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company also said it plans to continue testing its system preparatory to a rollout. Bling Nation's platform creates closed-loop transaction networks linking local merchants …

The electronic-commerce payments market remains highly competitive despite the recession, and the online niche payment systems are trying to adapt their game plans to the fluid conditions. “The economy is helping us on the consumer side and the merchant side,” says Sergio Pinon, chief executive of eLayaway LLC, an online …

The market for decoupled debit cards, which has been eerily silent for about a year, may soon be making waves again. An executive with Tempo Payments Inc., a non-bank processor with the only network-branded product on the market currently, said this week the company plans to launch a new product …

Entrepreneur Steve Case, whose founding of America Online Inc. helped popularize the Internet, told an audience of bankers on Monday that his new venture is set to shake up electronic payments by dramatically slashing costs for merchants and consumers. Case's remarks came on the same day that venture, St. Petersburg, …