Fraud & Security

The number of known data breaches fell 24% in 2018, but the number of compromised records that contained sensitive personally identifiable information more than doubled from 2017’s levels to over 450 million, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s latest annual data-breach review. The San Diego-based non-profit and partner CyberScout …

Payment Data Systems Inc. said it processed $3.4 billion in volume in 2018, a 21% increase from 2017’s $2.8 billion. Risk-management firm Featurespace raised $32.3 million from a funding round led by Insight Venture Partners. Payments provider ACI Worldwide said it will process real-time payments for 17 banks in Hungary …

Jason Oxman, chief executive officer of the Electronic Transactions Association since 2012, is leaving to accept a position as president and chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology Industry Council. He is expected to take up his new duties late next month. In his years heading the 29-year-old ETA, …

Almost a year after Visa Inc. altered the chargeback-resolution process, merchants are reaping some of the benefit. A survey of 500 Chargeback Gurus merchants found that 78% have fewer chargebacks under the Visa Claims Resolution program. “The first goal was to streamline the dispute process,” Suresh Dakshina, Chargeback Gurus president, …

WEX Inc., a payments and technology provider in the fleet, travel, and health-care sectors, said it has acquired Discovery Benefits Inc., an employee-benefits administrator serving more than 1 million consumers across the country. New York City & Co., the official visitors’ bureau for the city of New York, said it …

The PCI Security Standards Council on Wednesday published its new software security standards and said the existing standard will be retired in 2022. The new set of requirements actually has two major components—The PCI Secure Software Standard and the PCI Secure Lifecycle Standard—and is under the umbrella of what the …

Bank of America Corp. reported its customers using the Zelle person-to-person payment network totaled 4.9 million in 2018’s fourth quarter, up by a factor of 2.4 since Zelle’s June 2017 launch. Zelle volume at BofA for the quarter totaled $14 billion on 51.6 million transactions, up from $7 billion on …

Kabbage Inc., an online small-business financier, said it provides the Pay Later program for U.S. small-business buyers on Alibaba.com, an online marketplace. Payment-terminal maker Equinox Payments and payments-software provider Acceo Tender Retail announced the Equinox Luxe 8500i and Luxe 6200m terminals have achieved EMV end-to-end certification on First Data Corp.’s …

CannaTrac, a cashless-payment service for the cannabis industry, released the CannaCard App, a mobile-payment service that enables users to upload funds from a checking account, debit card, or cash at select partner locations. A 95-cent fee applies to each funds loading. The app, available for Android and iOS devices, is …

Payments provider BlueSnap said it has integrated Google Pay into its platform for payments from online, mobile checkout, marketplaces, invoices, and virtual terminals. In related news, cross-border payments provider Flow also announced it is adopting Google Pay as payment option. Mobile-parking app provider ParkWhiz Inc. has rebranded itself as Arrive Inc. FICO said it has been awarded five …