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The payment industry's Wall Street parade continued Monday when non-bank ATM network owner Cardtronics Inc. announced plans for an initial public offering of common stock. The Houston-based operator of 31,000 machines hopes to raise potentially $300 million, before underwriting fees and payments to current owners, to pay down debt and …
Read More »Why POS Merchants Don’t Buy in to Payment Security
Data Insecurity Part 4 Securing transactions at the point of sale seems like child's play compared to the Internet, and since the payments volume is 20 to 25 times the size of online transacting, a natural venue for improved data security. But the rash of data breaches (covered in Part …
Read More »Phishing Attacks Nearly Hit an All-Time High in June, Report Says
Phishing fraudsters were exceptionally busy in June, with a near-record number of unique online attacks hitting consumers' PCs during the month, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, which tracks the fraud. The group recorded 28,888 unique phishing reports, up 23% from May and just shy of …
Read More »Google: Don’t Read Too Much into Our M-Payment Patent Application
Despite the frenzy of media speculation it unleashed over the Labor Day holiday weekend, Google Inc.'s application for a patent covering mobile payments draws little comment from the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant beyond a cautionary note that the mobile service may not progress beyond the drawing board. “We file …
Read More »Good Consumers Will Show Up for Good Security Measures
Data Insecurity Part 3 For as long as we've had threats to transacting online, there's been a data-security industry poised with a vast array of solutions to protect us, anxiously awaiting evidence of a compelling business case to get things started. But for just as long, it's been axiomatic that …
Read More »How a Software House Sells Remote Capture Directly to Merchants
Omaha, Neb.-based RemitPro Inc. is teaming up with payment processor Vanco Services LLC to open up a new category of smaller merchants to the developer of electronic-check software while removing the need for those businesses to change banks. RemitPro produces the eRemitPro data-capture and imaging application used by 150 clients …
Read More »NYCE, Fair Isaac Focus on Terminal-Based PIN Debit Fraud Control
Seeking to contain a growing form of payment card fraud, the NYCE Payments Network LLC has called upon risk-control technology provider Fair Isaac Corp. to help it spot fraud at the network's point-of-sale terminals and ATMs that accept PIN-based debit cards. While NYCE is not reporting any unusual fraud, its …
Read More »Visa Gets a Boost for Prepaid Partial Authorization from Shell
Nearly 4,000 gasoline stations branded by Shell Oil Co. have so far adopted a technical change from Visa USA that allows merchants to cut off delivery of a product on a prepaid card transaction as soon as the funds in the account are exhausted. Shell plans to roll out the …
Read More »How We Have Managed to Turn the SSN into an SOS
Data Insecurity Part 2 In a purely physical world, if you lost your wallet, and your Social Security card with it, you had a pretty good idea that something was amiss, and could report the loss and replace the card, if needed. Today, in a relentlessly electronic life, the Social …
Read More »Wachovia Milestone Points up Wider Adoption of Remote Capture
In a sign of the spreading popularity of remote deposit capture among U.S. businesses, Wachovia Corp.'s treasury services division announced on Monday it had hit $1 billion in remote capture volume for a single day. The Charlotte, N.C.-based regional bank attributed the milestone to the increasing adoption of the technology …
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