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Six specialty types of vendors, processors, and other service providers that card issuers use lack specific guidelines on how to protect cardholder data under the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, according to a recent report from research firm TowerGroup Inc. These service providers thus represent “hot spots” that …
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A Senate Letter Ratchets up the Heat on Networks over Interchange
A bipartisan letter last week from four U.S. senators to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. demanding information about how they set interchange rates is ratcheting up the pressure on the card networks, and it could represent another step on the U.S. road to joining about 20 other countries that either …
Read More »Visa Extends Fraud-Recovery Process to PIN-Debit Transactions
Visa Inc. is extending to PIN debit cards a process for reporting and recovering fraud losses from data breaches. In effect for credit cards and the Visa check cards since October 2006, the process, dubbed Account Data Compromise Recovery, will apply to Visa's Interlink point-of-sale debit and Plus ATM networks …
Read More »Interchange Hearing Pits Small Merchant Against Small Credit Union
The opponents and defenders of bank card interchange had their say on Thursday before the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee. What's next for the controversial Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008, however, is uncertain. The bipartisan bill introduced by panel chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and Rep. Christopher …
Read More »Due out in October, PCI Update Will Consist of Tweaks, Council Says
The rules for protecting cardholder data will be updated in October, the PCI Security Standards Council announced on Wednesday. The PCI Council, the organization the payment card networks set up in 2006 to oversee the so-called Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI DSS, is billing the coming changes more …
Read More »As Hearing Nears, Another Interchange Bill Is in the Works
Payment card interchange will be in Congress's spotlight again on Thursday when the House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing about the controversial Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008, a bill that would put price controls on card-acceptance costs. Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the assistant majority leader, is working …
Read More »Now Live, NACHA’s Secure Vault Payments Looks to ‘Ramp up’ in ’08
NACHA's online-payments pilot went live March 31 with one bank and one merchant and expects to have three to five more financial institutions, three to five more merchants, and between three and five billers participating by the end of the year, an official with the Herndon, Va.-based organization says. “The …
Read More »A Diversifying Heartland Snaps up Alliance Data’s Merchant Unit
Best known for its focus on restaurant merchant acquiring, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is about to become a major force in acquiring card transactions for petroleum retailers and convenience stores thanks to its pending, $77.5 million acquisition of Alliance Data Systems Corp.'s Network Services unit. Alliance Data recently put that …
Read More »ELayaway Gets Set for Expansion After a Low-Key Start
It's the new, old payment system. That's essentially how an electronic-payments startup called eLayaway LLC is billing itself as it prepares for bigger things following two years of testing and a low-key rollout to merchants and consumers. Tallahassee, Fla.-based eLayaway's slogan is “credit is overrated.” Its system allows consumers, once …
Read More »Alliance Data Peddles Its Acquiring Unit As Blackstone Deal Crashes
The troubled buyout of Alliance Data Systems Inc. by private-equity firm The Blackstone Group officially died this past weekend, a death that came as no surprise to the payments industry. But still alive is Alliance's effort to sell its merchant-acquiring business built around the former BSI Business Services Inc. front-end …
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