Analytics

Concerned customers of website domain provider GoDaddy.com Inc. were blazing the blog lines with questions and speculation in the wake of the company’s Sept. 21 announcement that 445 of its hosting merchant accounts experienced a security breach.

The majority of consumers in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia are concerned about possible exposure of their personal information. What's more, many have lost confidence in how companies protect such data, says a survey released this week.

SCOTTDALE, ARIZ.–The rise of more-advanced card data security measures and the emergence of mobile payments helped to drive record attendance here at the annual PCI Security Standards Council’s North American community meeting, whose attendees include payment-industry executives from 40 different countries.

Merchants and processors may find Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council requirements for the use of advanced encryption hardware to secure card data useful, but encryption alone is not security’s “silver bullet,” fraud-prevention vendors say.

When it comes to battling data breaches, banks would be well served doing such things as curbing employee web surfing to prevent unauthorized access to information. That’s just one of the suggestions bankers, technology providers and analysts made in a recent survey PaymentsSource sister publication, Bank Technology News, conducted.

Credit card debt decreased 18% to $6,285 in August even as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a slightly lower year-over-year 9.1% unemployment rate for the month, according to Credit Karma's latest U.S. Credit Score Climate report.

Capital One Financial Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Fairbank says he believes the credit card business is headed for significant consolidation and that his company intends to be one of the industry's "endgame players."

Demand from buyers of credit card portfolios owned by U.S. credit unions warmed somewhat during the first half of 2011 after hitting bottom last year, according to a Sept. 13 report from TRK Advisors.

At least three of the nation’s largest credit card issuers, as a result of their strategic actions and market positioning, may eke out growth this year despite the sluggish economy, according to a new report from Keefe, Bruyette and Woods.

Of the hundreds of thousands of words in the Dodd-Frank Act, none has caused as much consternation as the seven-letter one tucked into Title 10: abusive.

In a long-awaited showdown over the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats sparred over whether the Senate should proceed with the nomination of the bureau's first director.

Amid a resurgence of interest in issuing private-label credit cards and noteworthy behavioral shifts affecting consumer creditworthiness, First Data Corp. is adopting a new instant-credit decisioning and underwriting system from Zoot Enterprises Inc., the two companies announced Sept. 7.

Equifax Inc. has acquired Datum, a Costa Rican credit reporting company.

Mortgage giants Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. are balking at an offer by state officials to ease their blame for alleged wrongful mortgage practices in return for a multibillion-dollar payment.

The Federal Trade Commission is mailing more than 110,000 refund checks to consumers defrauded by an online operation that tricked payday loan applicants into paying for an unrelated debit card.

Consumers have filed 7,923 lawsuits against collection agencies and creditors this year through Aug. 15, a record-setting pace that easily tops the 7,169 lawsuits filed through the same period last year.

The average U.S. bankcard charge-off rate dropped sharply in June, registering the second-largest monthly decline since the Bankruptcy Reform Act took effect in 2005, according to the latest data from Fitch Ratings Inc.

Economists who participated in a recent survey largely believe high unemployment and weak consumer spending will hold back the U.S. economy into 2012 but most say a recession is not likely over the next 12 months.

WASHINGTON — Bank regulators have long kept state officials at arm's length, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forging a close relationship with state attorneys general to enforce consumer banking laws.

Credit card charge-offs have been plunging since the middle of last year, moving against the tide of an anemic jobs environment but supported by slowing bankruptcies.