Wednesday , May 27, 2026

Debit Cards

Visa Creates Business Unit To Develop Opportunities in the Expanding Transit Payments Market

Visa Inc. announced Monday that it has created a business unit dedicated to transit payments. The new unit debuts as public transportation agencies worldwide move away from cash and proprietary magnetic-stripe fare cards and begin accepting mobile wallets and contactless general-purpose credit and debit cards. Dubbed Visa Global Transit Solutions, …

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Visa And Mastercard Grow In Europe As Issuers Drop Electron and Maestro Brands

As in the United States, Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. dominate card payments in Europe, but now the two U.S.-based card brands are growing on that continent partly at the expense of smaller brands they own. European issuers are systematically switching Visa Electron and Mastercard Maestro cards to simply Visa …

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ThreatMetrix Reports a 100% Increase in Third-Quarter Cyberattacks in Just Two Years

It’s not a pretty picture, but then anything detailing the proliferation of cybercrime isn’t likely to have a bright side. ThreatMetrix Inc., in its “2017 Q3 Cybercrime Report,” says it detected and stopped 171 million attacks in the third quarter, a 100% increase from the 2015 third quarter. The report, …

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Square Cuts Its Net Loss in Half And Lays Stress on Selling to Large Merchants

Square Inc. is still losing money, but less so, and the company made it clear Wednesday its sights are firmly fixed on selling its products and services to larger merchants. “We’re not just about micro-merchants,” chief financial officer Sarah Friar told equity analysts in a conference call to discuss the …

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With Gift Cards, Consumers Are Spending Much More Than the Gift Amount

Gift card recipients spend on average $38 more than the value of their gift cards, a $10 increase from 2016, says First Data Corp. in its “2017 Prepaid Consumer Insights Study” released Wednesday by the giant processor. Based on the responses of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, the report found …

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As the Holiday-Shopping Season Looms, E-Retailers Face Rising Security Challenges

The fourth-quarter holiday shopping season may be a big present in the form of more sales for retailers, but it may also bring with it a lump of coal in the form of amped-up cyberattacks and fraud attempts. Two of the most beneficial measures retailers can take to secure their …

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Frequency of Breaches Points up Limited Capabilities of Cybersecurity Teams, Survey Says

Data breaches have grown so frequent that at least some observers have begun to question whether cybersecurity staffs within corporate and government entities are up to the challenge of stopping them. “You just have to look at the continued ubiquity of breaches in the headlines to know that we’re losing …

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Wal-Mart And Visa Settle Lawsuits Over Debit Routing and Credit Card Interchange

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. confirmed Friday that it will settle its lawsuit against Visa Inc. over EMV debit card transaction routing. That news comes one day after the two leaders in their respective industries settled lawsuits they filed against each other stemming from the massive and still-ongoing credit card interchange litigation …

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COMMENTARY: How To Avoid a Hidden Retail Security Threat

In 2015, 70% of breaches reported by global retailers were directed at POS devices. With the quantity of exploits only increasing, retail CIOs cannot rely on industry minimum guidelines to set out their security strategy. While the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI DSS) provides a strong baseline of security …

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Cardtronics Shows Resiliency Despite ‘an Incredible Streak of Bad Luck’

A strong third-quarter earnings report helped lift shares of ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics plc by 4% Friday morning after they plunged 17% Thursday on news that Link, the ATM network in the United Kingdom—a key market for Cardtronics—floated a proposal to reduce interchange by 20%. Cardtronics, which has …

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