Heartland Payment Systems
Payment card terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc. on Monday issued a press release trumpeting its victory in a courtroom skirmish with merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc.
Albert Gonzalez, who in September admitted to hacking computers at TJX Co., BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Barnes & Noble, Tuesday pleaded guilty to stealing data from Heartland Payment Systems, Hannaford Brothers, 7-Eleven, and Target Co.
Details of the case reveal that prosecutors blamed Gonzalez and his partners of stealing over 130 Million credit and debit cards details by breaking into the systems of numerous retailers which include 7-Eleven Inc., the supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers Co., and Heartland Payment Systems, a New Jersey firm which processes card payments for several businesses.
Nearly a year after Heartland disclosed what turned out to be the biggest breach involving payment card data, the company remains a potent example of how compliance with industry standards is no guarantee of security
Heartland Payment Systems and Visa have announced “a settlement agreement under which issuers of Visa-branded credit and debit cards will have an opportunity to obtain a recoveryfrom Heartland with respect to losses they may have incurred from the 2008 criminal breach of Heartland’s payment system environment. Heartland will pay up to $60 million to fund the settlement program, which is subject to certain conditions, including a specified level of participation by U.S. Visa issuers. Visa will present details of the settlement to eligible issuers in the coming days.”
Three law firms representing credit unions and other card issuers with litigation pending againstHeartland Payment Systems, are urging card issuers to reconsider signing on to the offer.
Debit Cards Prepaid Cards
Software engineer who supplied a program that helped a ring of computer hackers steal credit card data from retailer TJX Cos of Framingham is considering appealing his prison sentence, his lawyer said yesterday.
Accor Services USA, leader in innovative employee benefits solutions and premier provider of national commuter benefit programs with its Commuter Check and WiredCommute programs, today announced the availability of its new Commuter Check Card Prepaid MasterCard, a new prepaid card commuters can use in accordance with the Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefit (IRS Tax Code Section 132(f)) to pay for commuting and commute-related parking expenses. Commuter Check Cards make paying for commuting and commute-related parking easier and more convenient than ever before.
Consumers Favor Debit Cards, But Prepaid Cards Lag Far Behind. While electronic payment methods continue to gain ground against paper-based payments, consumers show widely varying attitudes toward specific types of electronic methods, according to a recently released report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
RegaloCard has announced that Burger King, one of the leading fast food chains in El Salvador, has joined the RegaloCard Mobile Payment Network. RegaloCard is a prepaid gift card that immigrants can buy in the United States.The RegaloCard redemption PIN is then delivered instantly via mobile payment technology to the person they choose in Latin America, to make purchases at leading local retailers.
Within a few months of Best Buy threatening Visa that it will halt accepting its contactless card unless Visa changed its fees, the $35 billion 1,023-store chain made good on its threats and became Visa contactless-less.
Mobile devices that connect to the Internet are hot. In fact, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) predicts that within five years, more people will connect to the Internet using mobile devices than with desktop computers. The opportunities in mobile are huge. So prepaid debit card companies, what is your mobile payment strategy?
Main Street Softworks Inc., maker of the Monetra payment processing software, today announced its newest offering, CardShield, a suite of data protection solutions which enables merchants and software developers to quickly and easily create secure credit card processing systems in compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) security guidelines and the Visa USA best practice recommendations for data field encryption.
As a rule of thumb, small retailers see sales increase by more than 5 percent soon after beginning to accept credit-card payments. Sales of clothes, gifts or other nonessentials often climb a dramatic 10 percent. And yet many small shops in the United States and Europe refuse credit cards. Why? For many merchants, opening and managing an account for credit-card sales is prohibitively expensive. Others are shut out by red tape.
Here’s a new credit card scam for you . Cleverly enough, it convinces its victims to call a voicemail system and input the access data for their credit cards.
Stored Value Solutions (SVS), a Louisville, KY-based prepaid card program manager and processor, has signed an agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to provide both gift cards and promotional cards for the global entertainment company. The gift cards will be offered on the WWE website and will feature several of their most popular superstars.
Barclaycard has collaborated with UK government IT agency Becta to develop a special pre-paid card to deliver grants to families qualifying for a free computer and Internet connection under the Home Access programme.
SunTrust and MasterCard have announced that SunTrust will convert the company’s debit card programs to MasterCard. “After the conversion to MasterCard-branded debit cards, which is expected to begin late this year, SunTrust will issue approximately five million MasterCard ® debit cards that can be used everywhere MasterCard debit cards are accepted, including ATMs. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.”
Visa has introduced I Go with Visa Debit for consumers in Brazil and Mexico calling it “an online campaign to educate young adults on why debit is faster, more convenient and secure than cash.
Would you like your bank statement to be more interactive? Cardlytics is betting that you would. The company’s patent-pending technology allows merchants to present their customers with rewards and incentives for shopping with existing bankcards, without needing extra coupons or promotional codes.
Credit-card companies are going head-to-head with business groups in the fight to influence Ottawas plan to regulate the debit-card market in Canada.
Credit Cards and Reluctant Regulator. The Federal Reserve Board published its final rules on credit card practices last week, requiring new disclosures and banning some abusive practices that have been immensely lucrative for the banking industry.
Keep Shoppers Local With Prepaid Cards Community gift card programs, or downtown gift card programs are having great success in making sure local shoppers stay local.
Online and Mobile Payment Systems
A new service from GoPayforit has been launched to allow easier access to the Payforit and Web Payforit technologies. Now mobile application developers, blogs, WAP sites and websites can use GoPayforit to charge for content, membership, physical goods, or anything they may wish to sell.
While a disaster of massive proportions, the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti nevertheless is boosting online giving and mobile payments in particular as U.S. donors seek the fastest way of putting their donations to work in the stricken country. As of 9 a.m. Eastern time Monday, more than 2 million donors had given $21 million in $10 increments to the American Red Cross Haitian earthquake-relief effort, according to Tony Aiello, chief executive of mGive, the technology platform of Mobile Accord Inc. Founded in 2005, Denver-based Mobile Accord works with 200 non-profit groups to raise funds via mobile devices.
Will Mobile Payments replace cash in the last mile? Money in is the first mile of using cash to fund a mobile account and Money out or payment for goods is the last mile. Today, typically agents called human ATMs are receiving the cash to get it into the mobile payment scheme and a subscriber must go to an agent to get the cash out. Agent commissions make these programs difficult to scale as costs grow as volume grows, unless the mobile money transfer network can move to electronic payments in or out.
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