WASHINGTON - A top Visa U.S.A. Inc. executive went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to announce a voluntary initiative to protect customers from identity theft, and policymakers continued to work on broader information protection proposals.
Carl Pascarella, Visa chief executive officer, announced at a news conference that, starting July 1, it would voluntarily comply with a provision in a bill sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would prohibit card issuers from displaying more than the last four digits of account numbers on receipts.
MasterCard International had announced in October that in 2005 it will truncate account numbers on all of its credit card receipts.
Sen. Feinstein praised Visa's plans but said the voluntary compliance will not stop her from pushing her legislation, which also calls for card issuers to notify customers when an address change or other account activity suggests possible fraud, and for credit bureaus to provide consumers with a free report annually.
Meanwhile, policymakers are tying identity theft initiatives to the more contentious debate on renewing a federal preemption in the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The act bars states from adopting laws on a host of lending issues, including credit reports and how banks share some key information with affiliates.
The Treasury Department is "well down the road" to developing the administration's proposal on identity theft and customer information sharing, Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Wayne Abernathy told reporters on Wednesday.
"We've been gathering a lot of ideas from a lot of people. We've now got about a dozen ideas that we're polishing off. Hopefully within the next little while, they'll be ready to present," he said.
In an interview in January, Mr. Abernathy had said that the expiration of the preemption provisions in the Fair Credit Act gives the Treasury "an opportunity to insist that, as part of the renewal of those national standards, what also needs to be done is dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes for victims to get their credit history restored."
Separately, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan reiterated his endorsement of renewing the preemption provisions.
"I would support making permanent the provision currently in the Fair Credit Reporting Act that provides for uniform federal rules governing various matters covered by the FCRA and would not support allowing different state laws in this area," Mr. Greenspan wrote in a Feb. 28 letter to Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Tex., that was made public on Tuesday.
"Limits on the flow of information among financial market participants, or increased costs resulting from restrictions that differ based on geography, may lead to an increase in the price or a reduction in the availability of credit, as well as a reduction in the optimal sharing of risk and reward," Mr. Greenspan wrote.
