In 2018, the acceptance of virtual cards, also known as v-cards, by small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) increased significantly as suppliers embraced the improved security and convenience of this digital payment method over paper checks. Still, making the leap to fully automated payments remained a challenge for most within this market segment. …

There are no perfect solutions for account-takeover fraud, but tactics such as consumer education and prevention at log-in can make a big difference, says Rich Huffman. According to Javelin Strategy & Research’s report entitled, “2018 Identity Fraud: Fraud Enters a New Era of Complexity,” account takeovers (ATOs) tripled in 2017, …

Some 380,000 payment cards used by British Airways customers have been compromised in a data breach, and more than one in five consumers surveyed about last year’s massive breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. reported “unusual activity” in its wake, including new account openings. British Airways, one of Europe’s largest …

Some 124 new data breaches have become known this year as of Feb. 16, the Identity Theft Resource Center reports. And the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors issued a study last week pegging the cost of malicious cyber activity to the economy in 2016 at $57 billion on the …

Solutions are coming for slow speeds and high fees, says Eric Brown, who argues that even now the advantages for merchants are too good to pass up. Unless you spent last year living under a rock, you know that cryptocurrency is a sizzling-hot topic right now. Bitcoin’s price and daily …

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced changes to its controversial prepaid accounts rule and extended its effective date by one year, to April 2019. The changes will adjust error-resolution requirements for prepaid card providers and will make it easier for consumers to link credit card accounts to digital wallets, some …

Widely touted as a potent data-masking tool, encryption has been slow to take hold in the payments industry, despite a continuing plague of data breaches. Here’s what’s going on to change that. Kmart, Arby’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Hyatt Hotels.  Those are just some of the merchants that reported data breaches …

Fraudsters have caused 1,202 data breaches this year as of Nov. 29, up nearly 18% from the same period a year earlier, and they’ve exposed 172.4 million records, according to the latest figures from the Identity Theft Resource Center. Some 156.4 million Social Security numbers were compromised in the breaches, …

Merchant processor iPayment Inc. has agreed to acquire Leaders Merchant Services, an independent sales organization that has worked with iPayment since 2004. Terms were not disclosed. Electronics maker SparkFun Electronics developed an app for Android devices that can detect the likely presence of a credit card skimmer commonly found on …

Our daunting set of sticky wickets this time ranges from data breaches that just don’t stop to debit card pitfalls to travails for P2P and Bitcoin. This is Digital Transactions magazine’s 11th annual ranking of payments woes, and one lesson we’ve learned in all that time is that they don’t …