Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Of 232 large U.S. merchants identified by Visa USA in 2004 and 2005, some 23% now comply with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI), but 73% are projected to be in compliance by the end of the year “based on progress reports,” says Michael Dahn, president of Volubis Inc., …
Read More »End of First Data Net Saga Sets up FDC To Get Payments from Visa
Visa USA and payment-processing giant First Data Corp. on Wednesday announced a settlement in a 4-year-old legal dispute that apparently puts an end to First Data Net, a high-profile initiative of First Data's former top official, and also appears to set up FDC to receive payments from Visa to help …
Read More »Pressure Builds in Congress To Address Data-Security Breaches
With the loss or theft of computerized personal information making headlines almost daily, lawmakers are scrambling for solutions for what is shaping up to be the 21st Century's hottest non-violent crime. More than a dozen bills that would put new requirements on banks and other entities with access to sensitive …
Read More »Wachovia Exposes Latest Card Fraud, But More Banks Likely Ensnared
Wachovia Corp., some of whose debit card holders have been victimized by a data breach that happened several months ago, began sending notices and replacement cards to those customers recently because it began to see signs of fraud after months of monitoring the accounts, the bank says. Although Wachovia's action …
Read More »Tech-Savvy Scheme Loots Millions from Montreal Debit Accounts
Canadian police arrested 10 people Tuesday they say used rigged card terminals to intercept PINs as cardholders entered them at the point of sale as part of a scheme in which they stole $4 million (Canadian) from 18,000 customer bank accounts. More arrests are expected, according to the authorities. In …
Read More »Observers Split over How Much Google Will Compete with PayPal
With online search giant Google Inc. reportedly a week away from launching its long-expected payment service, observers differ on the question of whether the service will allow merchants to accept electronic payments on their own sites or be limited to Google's own platforms, especially the rapidly growing Google Base online …
Read More »An Online Boom: Phishing Numbers Hit New Highs in May
The number of unique phishing attacks and the population of Web sites involved in the online fraud both hit all-time highs in May, following a disturbing trend of dramatic month-to-month increases since late 2005, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. Reports of unique attacks?discrete e-mail blasts sent to consumers by …
Read More »Retailers Say, ‘Show Us the Fines’ on PCI, E-Commerce Exec Says
Merchants' sluggishness in achieving compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is a source of some frustration to vendors like LaGarde Inc., but Michael Levin, executive vice president of marketing and business development for the Olathe, Kan.-based marketer of shopping-cart software for e-commerce, doesn't see the pace picking …
Read More »E-Retailers’ Order-Review Logjams Create a New Software Market
Online retailers have long deployed front-end screening systems to check card-not-present transactions for fraud. A new software product announced Tuesday, however, is apparently the first commercially available product to automate what is now a heavily manual process of checking orders that don't pass these screens and yet are not unambiguously …
Read More »Banks Should Pick up the Phone for Bill Payments, Experts Assert
Think of electronic bill payments and, not surprisingly, the Internet usually comes to mind first. But many billers, especially banks, have yet to offer bill payments through telephone-based customer-service systems or automated interactive voice-response units, experts tell Digital Transactions magazine in an upcoming story on expedited bill payments. The Web's …
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