NEWSDiscover Financial Services reached settlement agreements in its antitrust lawsuits against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide. Discover sued the credit card giants in 2004 for roughly $6 billion, alleging both companies had harmed Discover's business by forcing banks to choose between issuing MasterCard and Visa cards or issuing Discover-branded cards.
U.S. courts ruled that Visa and MasterCard's policies restricting banks from working with rival card brands was anti-competitive and broke antitrust laws. Judge Barbara Jones of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan said the three companies had reached a settlement. Details of the terms were not disclosed.
An organized crime syndicate is suspected of tampering with hundreds of chip and PIN machines in retail stores and supermarkets across Europe. The stolen card data was used to siphon money from cardholder accounts in what is reportedly one of the largest scams of its kind.
Dr. Joel Brenner, a spokesman for the U.S. National Counterintelligence Agency, said the cyber thieves used a "supply chain attack" in which criminals bypassed the devices' security measures, stole card data from thousands of consumer credit and debit cards, and transmitted the data via mobile phone networks to fraudsters in Lahore, Pakistan.
"The machines were opened, installed with a corruptive device, then perfectly resealed," Brenner said. "It was impossible for anyone to know that they had been tampered with." MasterCard officials uncovered the scam and alerted stores to weigh tens of thousands of devices to find those that had been altered. The hacked devices weighed three to four more ounces than standard machines.
According to State of Remote Deposit Capture 2008: Spring Becomes a Marathon, a new report by research and advisory firm Celent LLC, two-thirds of all U.S. banks and 40 percent of all U.S. financial institutions will have adopted remote deposit capture by the end of 2008.
RDC has been strong among mid-size banks, community banks and credit unions in the past year. But it fell short of expectations with an estimated 382,000 users by year-end 2008.
"Celent finds the RDC market still relatively untapped, with no indication of overstatement in earlier estimates of market opportunity, as many as 5 million capture points by 2014," said Bob Meara, Senior Analyst with Celent's Banking Group.
The Members Group donated 20 computers and monitors to Vatterott College for an equipment drive dubbed PCs for Parkersburg, which was organized to help victims of the summer 2008 tornadoes and floods that swept through central Iowa. The 20 desktop computers were intended for resale to TMG employees, but the staff decided to donate them instead. "It's our hope that the computers will help the residents of Parkersburg in their efforts to rebuild their hometown," said Gregg Rounds, TMG Manager of Technology Infrastructure. TMG's core products include credit, debit, ATM and prepaid solutions, as well as online reporting, item processing, automated clearing house and printing services.
ANNOUNCEMENTSApriva Inc. certified Hypercom Corp.'s Optimum T4210 and T4220 payment terminals on the Apriva Intelligent Gateway. Apriva will offer value added services, including online reporting, order processing, real-time provisioning and customer management.
3Delta Systems Inc. joined the Council for Electronic Billing and Payment, a council of NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association. The CEBP promotes electronic consumer and business-to-business billing and payment programs and services.
According to a recent study from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, most hotel wireless connections are unsecure. Therefore, Comodo Group Inc. is offering a free seven-day trial of TrustConnect, which reportedly creates a virtual private network that puts a shield around a user's public wireless Internet connection.
CPI Card Group is expanding in the Canadian marketplace by acquiring a Canadian facility formerly known as Metaca Corp., located in Concord, Ontario. The new full-service facility will be named CPI Card Group - Canada. It will be led by Anna Rossetti as President.
For the third consecutive year, Discover Financial Services was named to the 2008 InformationWeek 500 list of the most innovative users of information technology. InformationWeek recognized Discover for its success with two projects: creating the technology behind the new Discover Motiva Card and testing the viability of mobile banking. Discover ranked No. 144 on the list.
Fast Transact Inc. relocated its corporate office to the newly constructed Sixth and Woodland Building in downtown Lacey, Wash. Fast Transact will occupy 15,000 square feet of the 65,000 square-foot building's top floor.
Global Payments Inc. will provide its VIP LightSpeed suite of cash access products and services to nine casinos in Illinois, California and Wisconsin. VIP LightSpeed provides cash access services for traditional and electronic check cashing, ATM check cashing, credit and debit card cash advances, and credit reports.
Inside Contactless received the 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Contactless Smart Cards Growth Excellence of the Year Award in recognition of its role in shaping contactless payment technology in the smart card industry. Also, the company's first MicroPass contactless stickers for use in mobile handsets for secure payments are now available for card manufacturers. The sticker technology combines the MicroPass 4003 contactless payment platform with a tuned antenna for payment sticker applications.
MagTek Inc. is moving to a new building with twice its existing capacity to meet present and future growth. The new address is 1710 Apollo Court Seal Beach, CA 90740.
RBC Royal Bank is testing a new service, RBC Mobex Mobile Payment Service, which allows users to send and receive money instantly using text messages via mobile phones. The service is designed for person-to-person payments. Amounts of up to $100 per day can be sent to anyone with a mobile phone serviced by any Canadian wireless carrier.
WRG Services Inc. recently recognized its top distributors. Distributor of the Year honors went to Venco Business Music and Communications, of Bland, Va., and Northeast ATM of Rochester, N.Y.
PARTNERSHIPSAlliance Data Systems Corp. signed multiyear agreements with Gander Mountain to provide private-label credit card and database marketing services. Alliance also signed a contract extension to continue providing co-branded credit card services. In addition, Alliance will build and maintain a multitender consumer marketing database.
Allpoint Network, a division of Cardtronics Inc., will expand internationally through the integration of Bank Machine Ltd.'s ATM network. Bank Machine will add 2,500 ATMs to Allpoint, bringing Allpoint's total to more than 37,000 surcharge-free ATM locations worldwide.
Better ATM Services Inc. reached agreements with Automated Cash Management Systems Inc. and Aptus Financial to offer Amazon.com gift cards at ATMs. The two companies are part of a pilot program in which Amazon.com gift cards are distributed with a free $25 Restaurant.com promotional card. Columbus Data Services LLC provides transaction processing for the program.
CardWare International joined with ControlScan Inc. to help manage Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) compliance programs for small to mid-sized merchants. Through CardWare's acquirers, merchants have access to ControlScan's PCI compliance solution, which includes the PCI Self-Assessment Questionnaire and on-demand security scanning.
CO-OP Financial Services partnered with OCUL Services Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ohio Credit Union League, to promote CO-OP's surcharge-free ATM network. It consists of 28,000 ATMs.
Cynergy Data partnered with PayChoice to launch a low-cost payroll service. Cynergy is offering two programs powered by PayChoice: Payroll Street and Easy Street. Both include tax withholding calculation, free direct deposit and online access to pay stubs and W-2 forms for employees.
Elavon Inc. and Trustwave formed an alliance to offer PCI DSS compliance validation solutions to level 4 card-present merchants throughout Germany. Elavon will provide merchants with TrustKeeper, Trustwave's on-demand compliance management technology.
Merchant services provider ProPay Inc. is now fully integrated as an eBay Inc. checkout alternative. Buyers need not provide their banking information or sign up for ProPay accounts. ProPay is also offering electronic merchant services for eBay sellers.
Revolution Money Inc.'s RevolutionCard is now accepted at Murphy USA and Murphy Express gas stations and offers a discount of 3 cents per gallon.
Also, starting Nov. 1, 2008, consumers who sign up for the card will receive a $10 savings on each of their first five purchases of $25 or more. RevolutionCard said it charges no interchange fees and a 0.50 percent processing fee per transaction.
TSYS Acquiring Solutions signed a multiyear agreement to service the closed loop, private-label store cards of Argos and Homebase, which are part of the U.K.-based Home Retail Group PLC. Argos and Homebase have an active cardholder roster of more than one million accounts.
In addition, TSYS Healthcare and Paragon Benefits partnered to roll out the My Care Card for flexible benefit payment processing. Subscribers will be able to pay up to 50 funding sources on one card. The card also includes flexible spending, health reimbursement, health savings, and credit and cash accounts.
ACQUISITIONSTata Consultancy Services Ltd. will acquire all of Citigroup Inc.'s interest in Citigroup Global Services Ltd., Citi's India-based business processing outsourcing arm, for approximately $505 million.
Citi also signed an agreement for TCS to provide outsourcing services to Citi and its affiliates in an aggregate amount of $2.5 billion over 9.5 years.
APPOINTMENTSHypercom Corp. appointed Lloyd Baylard Vice President and General Manager, Multilane Products, and Rod Hometh Senior Vice President and General Manager, Modular Payments Business Unit.
Baylard, formerly Vice President of Ingenico Group's Retail Solutions division, will lead Hypercom's multilane sales in the Americas. He takes over for Hometh, who is now responsible for building a business unit to drive sales of modular products to the "unattended" market.
Ingenico Inc. appointed Jacques Behr to the position of Managing Director, France. Behr was previously Director of Development at Experian.
Behr has more than 20 years' executive experience in electronic banking and managed services. He was also responsible for the creation of several companies.
Solveras Inc., a provider of electronic payment solutions for businesses, promoted John S. Cramp to the position of Chief Executive Officer.
First Data Corp. named Robert P. DeRodes as its Chief Technology Officer. DeRodes' information technology experience spans more than 39 years in a variety of industries.
He recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for The Home Depot U.S.A Inc. He also served as CEO for Delta Technology Inc. and CIO for Delta Air Lines Inc.
Michael Grossman joined Déjavoo Systems as a founding member and Executive Vice President of Sales. Most recently, Grossman worked as Executive Vice President of Product Development with Cynergy. For nine years Grossman was a Senior Vice President at Lipman USA.
Jack McDonnell is the new CEO of ExaDigm Inc. Previously McDonnell was CEO of PayLinx Financial Corp., which was later sold to CyberSource.
McDonnell serves as a member of ExaDigm's board of directors and as a director of DealerTrack Inc. and CyberSource Corp. He is also the founder of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association.
Semtek Innovative Solutions Corp. hired three new senior executives. Lance Nakamura, Jay Standiford and Roger Cooper joined as Vice President of Product Development; Vice President of Engineering; and Vice-President, Senior Sales Officer, respectively.
Most recently, Nakamura was the CTO of WAY Systems Inc.; Standiford was the Vice President of Engineering for NetList Inc.; and Cooper was Vice President for National Accounts for Bank of America Merchant Services LLC.
The PCI Security Vendor Alliance added new members to its board and welcomed additional alliance members. New board members are David Ottenheimer of ArcSight Inc., serving as Secretary/Treasurer, and Ounce Labs' Jack Danahy. New alliance members include Alert Logic Inc., AEP Networks, LogLogic Inc. and Voice Print International Inc.
T. Jack Williams is the new CEO of eCommLink Inc. Williams designed and implemented one of the first prepaid gift card programs.
He also served as a Senior Vice President at Tier Technologies Inc., National Processing Co. and Stored Value Systems Inc.
Also, eCommLink named Ennio Ponzetto its President and General Manager. Ponzetto has more than 30 years' experience managing technology companies in the United States and abroad.
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