In the literature and in conversations about it, ransomware appears as a curious oddity on the canvass of cybercrime, a menace for which a healthy dose of cyber hygiene will serve as a satisfactory antidote. The standard advice is: “Watch for shady Web sites and phishy emails, and you will …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews With the U.S. point-of-sale conversion to EMV chip card acceptance well under way, attention turns to the upcoming liability shifts for ATM and fuel-dispenser transactions. First up is MasterCard Inc.’s liability shift for ATMs, which kicks in Oct. 21. Both MasterCard and Visa Inc. also have a …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews No doubt, the U.S. payment card industry’s monumental shift to EMV chip cards is earnestly moving ahead. A year later—Saturday marks the anniversary of the liability shift—some 2 million merchants accept the cards and card brands count millions of chip-enabled cards in use. The United States became …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews With Citigroup Inc.’s decision to join the network, the bank-controlled clearXchange person-to-person payments service has dramatically expanded its reach at a crucial time—just as it faces increasing competition from nonbank P2P rivals and in advance of a major rebranding set to take effect next year. The …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A federal appeals court on Monday handed American Express Co. a signal victory in the age-old battle with merchants over card-acceptance costs, but in doing so it may also have bolstered the card giant in its efforts to set and enforce merchant pricing. The U.S. Court …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews E-commerce fraud, the bane of online retailers and payments providers, is not only on the rise, certain U.S. locations seem more prone to this deceit than others. That’s according to a recent report from Experian plc. Data-specialist Experian says the riskiest ZIP code for shipping-address fraud is …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Apple Pay’s latest incarnation—enabling one-click payments for mobile and desktop Web-site purchasing—deftly brings the familiarity of such payments to Apple Pay users and merchants. At least, that’s my take on it, having used it last week when the service was released as part of an Apple Inc. …

In a break from the practice of most EMV chip card issuers, TCF National Bank reported this month that it will be issuing all of its customers’ debit cards with both contact and contactless capabilities. The bank, the principal subsidiary of Wayzata, Minn.-based TCF Financial Corp., said it will begin …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s deal with JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s ChaseNet processing network, announced Thursday morning, proves that the nation’s biggest retailer can make peace with the big card brands if the terms are right. And it may indicate bigger prospects for Chase’s ambitious merchant-acquiring operation. Under the …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The PCI Security Standards Council is now a decade old, and as it concludes its annual North America community meeting in Las Vegas Thursday it faces a payments-security landscape vastly changed from the one it confronted 10 years ago, with mobile payments, tokenization, and so-called fin-tech startups …