This Week’s Payment & Digital Media News

THE WEEK IN PAYMENTS

EMV
Academy prepares industry for EMV implementation – www.greensheet.com – 6/25/12 – “Are you ready for the Europay/MasterCard/Visa (EMV) standard to hit the United States? Can you explain to clients what EMV is and why they need to incorporate it into their POS systems? Do you have an EMV strategy that includes implementation and testing to be sure the technology works?”

Who will be ready for Chip Cards? – www.digitaltransactions.net. – 6/25/12 – “The card networks have weighed in with their US EMV policies but doubts persist among acquirers about whether processors and merchants will be able to meet the networks’ deadlines.”

Mobile Payments
Direct Sellers Need To Accept Mobile Payments — Or Else– pymnts.com – 6/25/12 – “Jonathan Shapiro is a partner at Ropart Asset Management, a venture capital firm that has repeatedly invested in direct selling companies (think Amway). Shapiro says mobile payment acceptance won’t just change direct selling — soon, it’ll become an essential technology. And those that don’t use it will fail.”

Survey: Retail Banks Holding Off On Mobile Wallet Technology– www.wbjournal.com – 6/22/12 – “Banks will hold largely off on investing in mobile wallet technology this year, instead opting to focus their digital investment dollars on more traditional mobile banking functions, according to a survey from Cambridge-based Forrester Research commissioned by the Consumer Banking Association.”

Apple’s Passbook Could Be A Platform, Not Just Another Mobile Payments Rival– techcrunch.com – 6/13/12 – “At this week’s WWDC, Apple introduced a new application called “Passbook,” meant to function as an organizer for all your passes. It supports store cards, gift cards and coupons out of the gate, replacing their plastic counterparts, and providing an Apple-approved way to get consumers paying at checkout with their mobile phones. At first glance, it seems that Passbook’s launch is bad news for mobile wallet players like Square, PayPal, and others.”

Hungry consumers can now pay for Whoppers sans wallets– www.internetretailer.com – 6/13/12 – “Consumers craving a Burger King combo meal in Salt Lake City now need look no further than their smartphone to pay the bill. Burger King Corp. announced today it is testing a mobile payment service in 50 of its locations in the Utah capital and surrounding metropolitan areas.”

Paying to Play: Planned Isis Fees Rankle Some Issuers– nfctimes.com – 6/7/12 – “One or more issuers are privately complaining about fees that the Isis joint venture is seeking to charge to host their payment applications in the Isis Wallet, NFC Times has learned.”

Mastercard Best Practices For Mobile Point Of Sale Acceptance– www.mastercard.com – 6/1/12 – “This document provides best practices for the development and deployment of Mobile Point-of-Sale (MPOS) acceptance solutions. These solutions allow merchants to use mobile devices as point-of-sale (POS) terminals and facilitate MasterCard and Maestro payment transactions. Here we will use the term “mobile devices” to refer to consumer-oriented, multi-purpose mobile computing platforms including feature phones, smart phones, tablets, and PDAs.”

Mobile Commerce
Z Gallerie deploys iPads in-store for simpler furniture shopping– www.mobilecommercedaily.com – 6/19/12 – “Home decor retail chain Z Gallerie is using iPad devices to support in-store sales staff and enhance the overall shopping experience.”

The Mobile POS Tipping Point – www.retailtouchpoints.com – 6/12/12 – “7-12calendar_templateRetailers are beginning to realize the importance and relevance of Mobile POS. While early adopters already have implemented the technology, most retailers are still in the research, planning or development phases. In this webinar titled: The Mobile POS Tipping Point, Ken Morris from Boston Retail Partners will share recent research from the 13th Annual POS Benchmarking Survey and discuss real-world retailer examples in order to help guide retailers toward Mobile POS success.”

Payment Security
Roseville police take part in credit, debit card skimming probe– www.kare11.com – 6/28/12 – “About 300 customers of the Chinese Gourmet Express restaurant in the Rosedale Center mall were the victims of a credit and debit card skimming scheme, according to the Roseville Police Department.”

USC investigates credit card security breach– dailytrojan.com – 6/28/12 – “A forensic investigation led by Ernst & Young found instances of credit card theft at several USC Hospitality venues over at least a one-month period, according to an email from Dan Stimmler, associate senior vice president of auxiliary services. Credit card numbers were obtained because of a breach in third-party software that the university installed three years ago, Stimmler said to the Daily Trojan.”

Fraud Ring In Hacking Attack On 60 Banks– news.sky.com – 6/27/12 – “Sixty million euro has been stolen from bank accounts in a massive cyber bank raid after fraudsters raided dozens of financial institutions around the world.”

FTC sues Wyndham hotels over data breaches– news.cnet.com – 6/26/12 – “Hackers stole information from hundreds of thousands of payment cards, resulting, the trade commission says, in millions of dollars in fraud loss.”

Skimming Conviction in Texas Carries Hefty Penalties – www.nacsonline.com – 6/26/12 – “A Texas jury has convicted a California man who participated in a multi-state skimming ring, which enabled the group to steal $100,000 and 38,000 debit and credit card numbers, the Associated Press.”

CFTC Data Breach Risks Employees’ Social Security Numbers– www.bloomberg.com – 6/25/12 – “The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission suffered a data breach in May, putting at risk Social Security numbers and personal information of employees of the country’s top derivatives regulator.”

Bill would make companies report data breaches sooner– www.federalnewsradio.com – 6/25/12 – “Five Republican senators have introduced a bill that would require companies that store your personal information to report any security breaches to you as quickly as possible.”

Texas jury convicts man in gas pump skimmer theft that stole debit, credit card numbers– lubbockonline.com – 6/23/12 – “A California man has been convicted in Texas for participating in a multi-state theft ring that used illegal skimmers at gas stations to steal 38,000 debit and credit card numbers — then siphon $100,000 from bank accounts.”

Debit card security breach affects some First Federal bank accounts– www.islandpacket.com – 6/21/12 – “First Federal bank is investigating fraudulent debit card charges that affected 16 of its account holders in southern Beaufort County.”

Hacker comes clean over Visa-Mastercard data breach claims – www.itpro.co.uk – 6/19/12 – “A computer hacker who claimed to have acquired at least 50GB of customer information from credit card companies Visa and Mastercard has apparently backtracked over the source of the data.”

‘Skimming’ defendant found nearly unconscious at Fort Worth home– www.star-telegram.com – 6/19/12 – “The trial of a man accused of “skimming” consumers’ account information from automated gas pumps across North Texas was halted Tuesday after the defendant was found nearly unconscious in his home in north Fort Worth.”

Attack Against Point-of-Sale Terminal– www.schneier.com – 6/19/12 – “When you pay a restaurant bill at your table using a point-of-sale machine, are you sure it’s legit? In the past three months, Toronto and Peel police have discovered many that aren’t.”

Skimming Scheme Could Have Victimized 40,000– www.nbcdfw.com – 6/18/12 – “Evidence presented in court Monday suggests that nearly 40,000 people were victimized in an elaborate skimming scheme.”

Hacker claims breach of 79 banks, releases customer data– news.cnet.com – 6/18/12 – “A hacker claiming to have broken into networks of dozens of banks and stolen customer data, has released as proof a file that contains names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers in plain text, but no credit card numbers.”

Data in Possible Credit Card Breach Appears to Be Old– www.pcworld.com – 6/18/12 – “A batch of names, addresses, emails and phone numbers of credit card customers around the world released on Monday indicates a breach of a payment processor, but the data appears old.”

Visa and Mastercard at centre of alleged data breach – www.itpro.co.uk – 6/18/12 – “A computer hacker has leaked a list of names, addresses and telephone numbers it claims belong to Visa and Mastercard customers.”