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Call the Colonel: Crooks have hacked KFC's Colonel's Club loyalty system in the U.K., with a unreleased number of accounts potentially compromised. TechCrunch reports the club has 1.2 million members, who were advised to change their passwords for the loyalty system and any other unrelated account. The technology news site reports the attacker may have had access to password data, either through databases or through login exchanges. KFC also told TechCrunch that the scope of the attack appears limited and it does not store card information in the Colonel's Club, so no financial information was compromised.
Signage is displayed at a Yum! Brands Inc. KFC restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016. Yum! Brands is expected to release earnings figures on October 5. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
Standard Bank goes all in: South Africa's Standard Bank has rode Africa's mobile money wave early and often, and the financial institution is now making a direct play to build a mobile payments business by acquiring local startup Firepay, according to IT News Africa. Standard and Firepay have collaborated in the past, signing up more than 30,000 local merchants and hundreds of thousands of consumers to an app that enables stores to receive a QR code that they print out and place at their point of sale terminals. Consumers use the app to pay via tap and a PIN. The bank did not release terms of the transaction, though Firepay will retain its management structure.
Salsa mPOS: Mobile point of sale systems are maturing quickly, enough for companies such as Square to be the mobile point of sale provider for Coachella music festival earlier this year. In a similar move, eMobilePOS from eNabler was named the POS solution provider for the World Salsa Championships in Atlanta over the weekend. The software was used to admit attendees and accept payments for retail merchandise, according to a release from the company. eMobilePOS ran on a Samsung Galaxy Android Tablet and was paired with a Star Micronics device that includes a cash drawer and printer.
One in five Europeans 'excluded' from banking: While financial inclusion projects are normally associated with emerging economies, as many as 138 million Europeans are not part of the formal banking system, reports Mastercard, which would be about 20% of the continent's total population. About a third of Europeans without a bank account are employed while another third are millennials, according to onestopbrokers. The card network's research cites lack of knowledge and trust as reasons for the high percentage, and notes that 20% of the unbanked do not want a bank account while 10% do not trust the banking system. Mastercard says the keys to bridge the gap include more education, technology and greater prepaid options.
I have seen the future of wearable payments, and it is magical Android Central • Ara Wagoner Disney World does mobile payments right. I went to Walt Disney World at the beginning of December. It was absolutely glorious. And each day, while in the parks, I did not take a wallet with me. I stuck my driver's license in...
More from PaymentsSource
Payments may be best hidden, even from merchants One of the big ideas payment technology execs push is the backgrounding of the transaction — often called the "Uberization" because of how well the ride-sharing app Uber accomplishes this feat.
War stories from failed mobile wallets The recent history of mobile wallets includes a lot of crashes and failures, but the people behind those projects are still around and are wiser for their experiences.
Many merchant systems still lack basic security What could a Point of Sale (POS) security breach cost your business? Factoring in the cost of an investigation, legal fees, potential fines and lawsuits, damage to a reputation, and a likely decrease in customer loyalty, your business could be out millions of dollars.
Many banks got shares in the lucrative payments network when it went public in 2008. Some of them are now looking to sell in order to offset losses on their sales of underwater bonds.
Depositors are still flocking to online-only banking platforms offered by companies such as Ally, Capital One and Discover. But overall customer satisfaction took a "statistically significant" drop, according to a new J.D. Power report.
Executives of Allegiant, Breeze and Spirit complained to the heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Transportation that the relationships between big banks and big airlines are anticompetitive. Consumer advocates also questioned whether large airlines are delivering on promised rewards and if consumers are racking up debt to accrue miles and points.
The Federal Reserve Thursday released a report on its climate stress test pilot assessing the impact of climate change on big bank portfolios and found that loan defaults could increase as a result of climate events and shifts toward a lower carbon economy.
