NEWSThe Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative applauded recent testimony by Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., during a hearing on the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2010 (H.R. 4976).
The legislation could generate as much as $72 billion in new revenue over 10 years for federal and state governments. "Witnesses clearly articulated why Congress should give fair consideration to regulating online gambling activity as a way to ... stimulate the economy," said Michael Waxman, spokesman for the Initiative.
Heartland Payment Systems Inc. commercially launched its end-to-end encryption technology, called E3, which is designed to protect cardholder data by rendering it useless to cybercriminals. E3 is now available to merchants and business owners nationwide.
According to Heartland, E3 features "layers of security using both software and tamper-resistant hardware" and employs the Advanced Encryption Standard to encrypt "all Track 1 and 2 data from the card's magnetic stripe the moment it is converted from analog to digital data and enters a merchant's system as scrambled data ... never storing card numbers or passing them through the merchant's system or network."
Additionally, Heartland entered into a settlement agreement with MasterCard Worldwide to resolve claims from MasterCard and its issuers related to a 2008 criminal intrusion by hackers into Heartland's payment system. As part of the settlement, Heartland will pay $41.4 million to eligible MasterCard issuers for alleged losses stemming from the intrusion.
The settlement hinges on financial institutions representing 80 percent of the MasterCard issuers who filed claims accepting the deal by June 25. All eligible issuers will soon receive full details from MasterCard on how to accept their recovery offers before the offers expire.
In other news, Heartland was named to the 2010 Fortune 1000 list of America's largest companies by Fortune magazine, debuting at number 954, with 2009 revenues of $1.65 billion.
How to establish and protect identity in online transactions was the dominant topic for the many sessions at the Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference, held May 17 to 20 in Scottsdale, Ariz.
At the conference, Mike O'Neil, Executive Director of the North American Security Products Organization, said the organization is developing a new identity verification standard and process that could be used to establish more trusted identities for individuals.
Mike Ozburn, a principal in Booz Allen Hamilton, said the web's move toward cloud computing is creating new challenges in cyber security. "Security has to be as implicit, as built-in, and as architectural" as the cost dynamics driving everything to the web and the cloud, he said.
ANNOUNCEMENTS Amazon Payments Inc. now uses Yodlee's InstantAccountVerification technology to simplify how customers add and verify bank accounts to their Amazon Payments accounts. Yodlee's account verification technology verifies a person's account information, ownership and balance in real time, according to Yodlee
BlueStar was named by Star Micronics America as its 2009 Distributor of the Year.
The award acknowledges distributors who demonstrate continued year-over-year growth in sales and best practices in reseller business development on behalf of the Star Micronics brand.
The sale of the CAM Commerce POS software division to Robertson Piper Software Group has opened the way for CAM's integrated payments division to establish an independent brand for all of its POS partners: Accelerated Payment Technologies.
Charge Card Systems launched CCS ePay, a proprietary gateway for e-commerce transactions. In addition to standard gateway features, CCS ePay reportedly provides retail and MO/TO merchants with pricing, integration with QuickBooks software, the ability to process PIN debit transactions and a back-end processor for specific wireless devices, as well as smart phones and virtual terminals.
First Data Corp.'s consolidated revenue for the first quarter of 2010 was up 16 percent to $2.4 billion, with growth primarily driven by its alliance with Bank of America Merchant Services. The alliance substantially extended First Data's presence in merchant acquiring, the company stated.
Hypercom Corp. introduced the L5000, a new product family of multipurpose, multimedia payment terminals that connect to any POS register system.
The new product lineup enables multiple in-store uses beyond traditional checkout functions, including in-aisle product locating, bar code price checking, health insurance card processing at pharmacies, gift card loading and wedding registry processing at kiosks, according to Hypercom.
In addition, Hypercom reported that its HyperSafe Secure suite of payment data encryption technology meets the new security requirement guidelines issued by the Secure POS Vendor Alliance.
Moneris Solutions Inc. adopted the voluntary code of conduct for the credit and debit card industry recently announced by Canadian Minister of Finance James Flaherty. "In accepting payments, merchants are entitled to an acquirer relationship that fosters and promotes transparency and choice," said Jim Baumgartner, President and Chief Executive Officer at Moneris.
PacketMotion and Wright Express Corp. joined the PCI Security Standard Standards Council (PCI SSC) as participating organizations. The companies said they will use their areas of expertise to work with the council to evolve the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) and other PCI data protection standards.
PXT Payments launched its chip-based, secure, smart debit card designed to create a safe, local currency for municipalities across the country. The PXT smart debit card provides merchant loyalty discounts and exclusive offers for consumers and a credit card-like settlement process.
Tempo Payments Inc.'s affinity debit card platform earned the CODiE Award for Best Open Source Solution from the Software & Information Industry Association. Tempo's affinity debit platform was built entirely using open source software and enables consumers to design and apply for affinity debit cards online, according to Tempo.
Robert J. McCullen, Chairman and CEO of Trustwave, is a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2010 Award in the Midwest. TransFirst's President and CEO, John Slonsky, is a finalist for the award in the Southwest Area-North.
Regional award winners will be announced in June and are eligible for consideration for the Ernst & Young LLP Entrepreneur of the Year national program. The Entrepreneur of the Year award winner will be celebrated at a gala in November.
ViVOtech Inc. received two awards for its role as the NFC software solution provider for the Citi Tap and Pay mobile payment pilot in India: the Smart Card Alliance Outstanding Smart Card Achievement Award for Innovation in Payments Technology and the Contactless Intelligence "Monkey" Award for Competitive Advantage through Technology.
PARTNERSHIPSCardinalCommerce Corp. integrated its Cardinal Centinel Platform with Evertec Inc.'s transaction processing services to provide Evertec merchants with continued, strengthened support for Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode transactions.
Celent, a Boston-based financial research and consulting firm, will provide strategic business and technology information to Credit Union National Association, the national trade association serving credit unions.
The relationship provides CUNA's affiliated credit unions with access to Celent's research at reduced rates.
Merchant processing company Cynergy Data LLC signed a multiyear processing agreement with World Wide Payment Solutions.
Cynergy reported that it will provide to World Wide and its merchants the Vimas platform, an online account management system that allows merchants to track their daily credit transactions, deposits, chargebacks and retrievals.
EVO Merchant Services Inc. released WAY Systems Inc.'s way5000 as a fully supported mobile device for its customers. EVO stated that it serves more than 235,000 small to mid-sized merchants.
Itelligence Inc. selected Paymetric Inc.'s XiPay On-Demand and XiSecure services to help mid-sized businesses integrate and secure electronic payments within their enterprise resource planning systems. Paymetric's on-demand services will be pre-integrated with itelligence's solutions.
NanJingKeTai Info Tech Ltd., an e-commerce provider in China, will use Trustwave's services to provide merchants with single-source data protection. The agreement allows merchants to validate compliance with the PCI DSS.
PGP Corp. and Protegrity USA Inc. are combining efforts to provide enterprise users comprehensive end-to-end encryption of sensitive data. Solutions from PGP and Protegrity will bring together desktop data protection and server data protection, all under centralized, automated key management, policy management and administration, the companies said.
VeriSign Inc. is partnering with Bank Associates Merchant Services to allow BAMS to offer VeriSign Extended Validation (EV) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to online merchants. VeriSign EV SSL certificates trigger high-security web browsers to display a green address bar with the name of the organization that owns the SSL certificate and the name of the certificate authority that issued it.
ACQUISITIONSVeriFone Inc. is acquiring the assets of Orange Logic Ltd., a South Korean payment systems provider. The acquisition is designed to enable VeriFone to gain the people and infrastructure to introduce its secure electronic payment product line into the Republic of Korea, as well as gain an existing domestic product line and customer base.
Cash N Go purchased Inetco Systems Ltd.'s flagship product Inetco Insight to guarantee cost-effective and continuous uptime and reliability of its ATM network. Cash N Go said it operates a nationwide network of more than 1,100 ATMs across Canada.
Equity investor Summit Partners agreed to acquire a majority stake in Ogone SA/NV, a European payment service provider. Summit Partners said Ogone will remain an independent company, and its existing management team and founders will continue as shareholders and advisors to the company.
The principals of Merchant Focus Processing and Inner Fence acquired AppNinjas, creator of swipe credit card terminals for the Apple Inc. iPhone. Inner Fence and Merchant Focus Processing have had an exclusive working relationship in iPhone credit card processing since 2008.
APPOINTMENTSFirst Data promoted Kevin Kern to Executive Vice President, Global Operations & Technology; it also promoted Ray Winborne to Executive Vice President, Acting Chief Financial Officer.
Kern joined the company in 2009 as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and subsequently assumed responsibility for international operations, including global technology solutions.
He has been in industry leadership positions for more than 33 years and has experience with global transformations.
Winborne joined First Data in 2009 as Senior Vice President, Finance and Controller. He is responsible for all corporate accounting activities. Formerly, he served as Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer at BellSouth Corp. and Delta Air Lines.
Linda Michieli recently joined accounts receivable management company Optio Solutions LLC. As Manager of the Dallas area office, Michieli will recruit, coach and support the office's sales team. She will also assist clients in reducing costs and increasing recovery rates. Michieli has more than 11 years' experience consulting in the collection industry and has held management positions at Transworld Systems Inc.
Charge Anywhere LLC hired Craig Peterson as Sales Director. He will lead the company's distribution efforts for the ISO and processor channels in the Midwest. Peterson brings 17 years of industry experience to Charge Anywhere, having served at major payment processors, financial institutions and service providers.
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