After alerting its customers in January that its arts and crafts store chain had suffered a potential data breach, Michaels Stores Inc. confirmed last week that at least 2.6 million cards may have been affected.

Visa has created a new top post overseeing risk and public policy and named its next general counsel.

WASHINGTON — Regulators slammed Bank of America on Wednesday with their toughest enforcement action to date on shady marketing and billing practices for add-on products like identity protection, forcing it to pay $772 million in restitution and fines.

WASHINGTON — Bank of America will pay $772 million to settle allegations by two regulators that it engaged in unfair fee collection and marketing related to credit card add-on products.

Stepped-up scrutiny of Internet payday lenders, online pharmacies and other merchants that regulators and law enforcement view warily is forcing the payments industry to adapt.

Hackers who raided the credit-card payment system of Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. belong to a sophisticated Russian syndicate that has stolen more than 160 million credit-card numbers from retailers over seven years, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Breaking into the ultra-competitive credit card market requires time, money and creative thinking. Wells Fargo (WFC) is behind on the first and isn't talking about the second, but is hoping that the third can make up the difference.

When an office-supply store sends you a targeted offer for a new printer, the personal data the company uses to tailor its pitch is exempt from numerous consumer protection laws.

Three months after coming to light, the massive exposure of 40 million card accounts at Target Corp. still has the payments industry and consumers talking about what should be done to prevent this happening again. In the United States, that is.

Target's profit fell nearly 50 percent in its fourth fiscal quarter and declined by more than a third for all of 2013, the retailer reports, damage likely the result of the credit card data breach that compromised information on as many as 110 million customers.

What good could possibly come from breaches at major retailers that exposed millions of Americans to potential card fraud? The silver lining for U.S. financial institutions is that the breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels have woken up their customer base to cybersecurity threats.

The most loyal and engaged shoppers are the ones who still pick private-label cards, a new study says.

Target's cybersecurity staff urged the retailer to review the security of its payments system at least two months before hackers compromised its network, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. consumer credit in December grew by the most in nearly a year due to a sharp increase in credit card usage, a potentially positive sign for the economy, according to the Federal Reserve's latest G.19 report.

Guests at some Marriott, Sheraton, Holiday Inn and other hotel properties had their credit card data exposed in a breach that occurred between March 20 and December 16 last year, according to hotel management firm White Lodging Services Corp.

Consumers in December filed 1,254 complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against a total of 383 debt collectors. The status of the complaints include 1,246 with timely responses.

The likes of Apple and Amazon are becoming bigger threats to incumbent payments companies, but MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga says his company views these players as potential allies.

Michaels is investigating a possible data security attack, CEO Chuck Rubin said in a letter to customers.

South Korea's biggest theft of personal information on credit-card holders prompted dozens of top executives at financial firms including KB Financial Group Inc. to offer to quit this week as a regulatory probe widened.

Credit card spending rose during the holiday shopping season from American Express Co. and Capital One Financial Corp. customers led to higher fourth-quarter profits for both firms, the companies reported.