Data and information management

MasterCard is cooperating with a European investigation into its fees, though it is questionable that this process will have a widespread effect on interchange, according to MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga.

More than a third of small-business owners won't accept EMV chip cards by Oct. 1 — and don't plan to do so any time in the future – but they may change their minds if the decision costs them as little as $100 in fraud losses.

While tokenization does represent progress, it is important to consider whether tokenization is, in fact, enough to secure online payments. There are some vulnerabilities, and as cyber thieves grow more sophisticated, companies will have to continue to innovate better security solutions, as well as ensure the ones that are on the market are being used as effectively as possible.

Bank regulators are likely to take further action to force banks to upgrade their cybersecurity processes as hackers continue to find ways to penetrate institutions’ defenses, Benjamin Lawsky, the top former New York bank supervisor, said Tuesday.

Commerce Bancshares Kansas City, Mo., has found its customers want to save the planet, but don't want to put in too much effort, so the issuer partnered with Sustain:Green for cards that offset carbon emissions.

There's a classic approach behind many of the retail cyberattacks that make the news: Backoff malware, which “sniffs” the traffic that flows on a network to identify and steal credit card data passed between point of sale (POS) terminals.

Fiserv has agreed to use Fujitsu's handprint-scanning system for fraud prevention in its account-processing product.

Some critics see banks' innovation labs as wasteful, unapplied research, but Wells Fargo has embraced the trend by establishing six such labs, a so-called accelerator program and now an innovation group. The bank's Steve Ellis explains its rationale.

Claims of security lapses at LifeLock and Experian call into question the value of these companies' identity theft protection services, which many banks offer to their customers.

Protecting payment card data is a never-ending struggle, and the fraudsters are only getting more creative. So far this year several incidents and studies have demonstrated the evolving nature of cybercrime.

Discover Financial Services is ready to take a few steps — measured, tentative, exhaustively analyzed steps — down the credit spectrum, its chief executive said.

PayPal's gotten off to a rousing start as an independent company, but Visa CEO Charlie Scharf doesn't appear to be worried.

Wells Fargo tapped the head of its wholesale services unit to lead a new research and development division.

Student Financial Aid Services Inc. is accused in a complaint filed Thursday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of charging families for help in filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

When a country migrates to EMV chip cards to improve its security, the fraudsters will move to another channel, but not necessarily another nation.

New York State's interim bank superintendent is asking pointed questions of a new instant messaging service. The outcome of the inquiry could broadly affect the way vendors work with regulators.

Discover Financial Services in Riverwoods, Ill., continued its run of quarterly profit declines in the second quarter, due primarily to higher costs for compliance, marketing and customer rewards.

Amex will terminate its agreement with Costco in the U.S. next year, a relationship that accounted for 20 percent of Amex's worldwide loans and 8 percent of customer spending.

Identity theft protection company LifeLock is coming under fire from the Federal Trade Commission for failing to adequately protect customers' credit card and bank account data, Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information, among other allegations.

As more point of sale terminals include connections to the Internet and customers' mobile devices, payment companies may need to consider themselves in an "Internet of Things" environment — with all of the risks that implies.