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The Retail Gift Card Association is recruiting new members with the aim of building a positive image of closed-loop gift cards, getting members to follow an ethics code, and countering the bad publicity directed at gift cards in recent months by consumer groups and legislators monitoring marooned cards whose sponsor …
Read More »Web-Based PIN Debit Picks up Momentum with a Pilot and New Deals
The Accel/Exchange electronic funds transfer network has signed up a handful of issuers for an Internet-based PIN debit pilot that processed its first transaction, for $9.49, on Wednesday, according to Michael Kelly, general manager of the Morris Plains, N.J.-based network, a unit of Milwaukee-based bank processor Fiserv Inc. Kelly says …
Read More »VeriFone Hopes to Counter Worldwide Slump with Security Push
Reduced buying from merchant acquirers, the stock-market downdraft, and currency fluctuations teamed up to take a big bite out of payment card terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc.'s latest financials. VeriFone late Tuesday reported a $182 million loss for its first fiscal 2009 quarter ended Jan. 31, and its boss predicts …
Read More »More ID Fraud Cases Stem from Data Breaches, Report Says
The good news about identity fraud: dollar losses per incident are going down. The bad news: incidents are up. The bad news for merchants: fraud victims, especially young adults, will punish merchants they associate with ID fraud. And some bad news for the payments industry in general: more ID fraud …
Read More »It’s Hunker-Down Time for the Bank Card Networks
If the flow of recessionary credit card spending could be likened to the Niagara River, MasterCard Inc. has gone over the falls while Visa is still just upstream at Grand Island. MasterCard on Thursday reported fourth-quarter drops of nearly 10% in U.S. credit card purchase volume and more than 6% …
Read More »Heartland’s Carr Calls for End-to-End Encryption To Stop Breaches
Nearly one week after news emerged of the big data breach at Princeton, N.J.-based merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc., it remains unclear how much damage actually happened and who did it. One report suggests Heartland's breach-related legal liabilities could approach $98 million, an estimate a Heartland spokesperson dismisses as …
Read More »Banks’ Card Reissuance Indicates Probable Scope of Heartland Breach
As merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and federal investigators continue to probe the data breach Heartland disclosed on Tuesday, evidence is building that banks and credit unions around the country are reissuing cards on a mass scale as a likely result of the breach. That could give credence to …
Read More »That Sucking Sound Is the Downdraft in Big Banks’ Charge Volumes
The latest credit card charge-volume figures from the nation's top three banks show big declines, portending weak results when other issuers, merchant acquirers, and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. report their fourth-quarter earnings in coming days. On Friday, Bank of America Corp. reported fourth-quarter purchase volume of $56.6 billion on …
Read More »Maverick Launches with Merchant-Issued Debit Cards, Prepaid Cards
Processors' experimentation with debit cards is taking on even more variety with the entry of Wilmington, Del.-based startup Maverick Network Solutions Inc. into the market. Maverick, which has brought together a handful of long-time payment-industry executives and received $1.5 million in venture funding in December, expects to begin a pilot …
Read More »Online Holiday Sales Track with Last Year, But Average Tickets Drop
Despite a sputtering economy, online merchants overall are breaking even with last year in terms of holiday sales, and the largest e-commerce sellers are running slightly ahead, according to statistics released this week. Web-based sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 19 totaled $24.03 billion, a 1% decline from the equivalent …
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