Smart phones may become a strong ally to fraud-plagued e-commerce merchants in helping to verify the location and identity of an online shopper. Online fraud is often committed by criminals who manipulate their computer’s location data and other attributes to make it appear they are who they say they …

By Jim Daly Target Corp.’s $10 million settlement of a consumer class action stemming from its late-2013 data breach is significant not only because of its size, but also because it signals that courts are becoming more attentive to the harm consumers suffer from data breaches even if the payment …

Ever since its launch, proponents of Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service have touted the wallet’s high-tech security features, including tokenization of card credentials, a secure element in the phone locking down those credentials, and fingerprint authentication. But now, only four months after that much-heralded launch, banks that support Apple …

Some 12.7 million Americans fell victim to identity fraud last year, a big number but down 3% from 13.1 million in 2013, according to Javelin Strategy and Research’s latest annual ID-fraud study. Even better, estimated fraud losses fell 11% to $16 billion from $18 billion in 2013. While those decreases …

  Consumers wielding multiple credit and debit cards in their wallets have yet another service to use to consolidate them into one electronic payment card. Stratos Inc. on Tuesday introduced its Stratos Bluetooth Connected Card that enables consumers to load multiple cards onto the electronic device. The card begins shipping …

As mobile commerce becomes ever more important to merchants, so too does the number of mobile payments made via apps and Web sites viewed on smart phones and tablets. Along with this growth, however, is a disproportionate increase in fraud as a percent of m-commerce revenue, finds the “2014 LexisNexis …

In the wake of a barrage of data thefts affecting tens of millions of U.S. citizens, President Barack Obama on Monday proposed national legislation to regulate breach notification. Other legislation proposed by Obama would ban companies from selling student data to other organizations for non-educational uses and from using information …

Components Biometrics in electronic payments didn’t have much life until last year, when Apple’s Touch ID and other applications gave the technology a shot of adrenaline. What’s next? It’s Act II for biometrics in payments. The now-defunct Solidus Networks Inc., better known as Pay By Touch, dominated Act I for …

The number of credit and debit cards compromised in data breaches hit 64.4 million in 2014, up 38% from 46.6 million in 2013, according to preliminary figures from the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego-based non-profit that tracks breaches. Some 133 of 2014’s breaches involved payment cards, up 39% …

MasterCard Inc. opened up its payment network to third-party software developers in 2012 and since then has participated in a number of regional “hackathons” in which developers create applications that link to MasterCard network services. Now MasterCard is expanding its footprint in the developer space by sponsoring what it calls …