Analytics

The concept of making anonymous online transactions is in the spotlight because of the prominence of the digital currency Bitcoin, but most consumers remain uneasy with the cryptocurrency's instability and risk. An alternative for the privacy-minded might sprout from Tor, or The Onion Router.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is all about money — but increasingly, the question is whether it's about protecting money or making money.

As technology companies move into the payments industry, a Silicon Valley data company is providing tools intended to help old-school acquirers maintain market share.

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuits ended 2012 behind 2011's total, a trend that began early in the year and held, according to data pulled from U.S. district courts.

Fiserv Inc. has stuck to the same philosophy it had when it formed the EFT Solutions Risk Office three years ago: card-data security isn't an arms race — it's a battle of wits.

Square has built its reputation as a quick and simple way for micro-merchants to accept card payments, but the company says it has proven it can serve the more demanding needs of larger retailers.

The Office of Fair Trading in Scotland has ordered state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland to stop using "charging orders" to collect small debts.

Finding balance in risk management is critical for financial institutions. Many have learned that tightened lending rules and a focus on collections has come at a detriment to doing business.

An enterprise that compiled and sold criminal record reports has agreed to settle FTC charges that it operated as a consumer reporting agency without adhering to Fair Credit Reporting Act rules.

Ingenico SA agreed to offer Shift4 Corp.'s gateway offering as part of the French terminal maker's point-to-point encryption portfolio.

Acquirers consider the Payment Card Industry data security standards slightly more important as a source of revenue than as an approach to security, new survey data indicates.

Cezar Butu of Romania, who pleaded guilty to taking part in hacking terminals at hundreds of U.S. Subway sandwich shops from 2009 to 2011, was sentenced this week to 21 months in prison.

It's been more than two months since Lower Manhattan was engulfed by flood waters from Superstorm Sandy and many merchants are still without the ability to accept credit and debit cards.

Tenpay, a Chinese payment service provider, plans to use fraud management services from Visa's CyberSource unit.

The McDonald's at 6 Water St. in New York City has been shut down for more than two months, as it was one of the first buildings struck by surges of sea water from Hurricane Sandy. The ATM inside, if it still exists, has been inaccessible ever since. But the machine has shown up for weeks afterwards on some ATM locator smartphone apps, which did not notice the machine's absence in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

Experian has taken a quarterly report of consumer credit data, one that used to be printed and came to hundreds of pages of text and charts, and turned it into a web-based searchable database.

Consumers continued to pay off their credit cards at historically high rates in the third quarter, with the delinquency rate hitting an 18-year low, according to the American Bankers Association.

The House Ethics Committee found no violations of House members whose mortgage loans went through the VIP section of the former Countrywide Financial Corp.

Wells Fargo has won a partial victory in its appeal of a closely watched, $203 million overdraft lawsuit, but both sides of the case are gearing up for another round of fighting over the bank's consumer practices.

Fraud and data security trends can change by the minute, often making it difficult to pinpoint a specific development as a key event during the course of a year. Not so in 2012.