PaymentsSource Payments Update Featuring HomeATM

Featured for Friday July 9th, 2010





Paul Turgeon, president of Payments & Processing Consultants Inc., believes HomeATM’s device is well suited for line-busting situations and for mobile merchants in general. “There are lots of those kind of merchants who are spending a lot of money equipping themselves to take credit cards,” he adds. [FREE] Read More >>
Many of Canada's merchants and financial institutions are on track to meet a key deadline less than three months from now for converting to EMV chip-and-PIN card technology. Read More >>
The allure of mobile payments, which Generator Research, a United Kingdom-based research firm, estimates will grow to an estimated $600 billion worldwide by 2014, has drawn AT&T Inc. into the fray, as have the merchants accepting payments via their phones. [FREE] Read More >>

Brazilian ATM Maker Enters U.S. Market
Sao Paolo, Brazil-based Itautec S.A., a maker of low-cost ATMs, plans to sell its full-service machines in the U.S. market starting this fall. Read More >>










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High-Profile Players Sign on to Promote Mobile-Merchant Technology



(July 8, 2010 Digital Transactions News)



As the young market for mobile payments on smart phones takes shape, industry players are scrambling to pair up with world-famous partners with massive numbers of consumer and business customers.  



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MasterCard (MA) Not As 'Priceless' As Rival Visa (V)

Editor's Note:  If anyone is interested, I'll trade my 1000 shares of Visa for 1000 shares of MasterCard all day long...in fact, all weekend long!

July 9, 2010 11:04 AM EDT 





Shares of credit card processor MasterCard (NYSE: MA) are being left out of today's rally after Goldman Sachs said its prefers the company's rival Visa (NYSE:V). Goldman Sachs' analysts said they like Visa more because of a faster-growing debit business and very limited exposure to Europe. Visa was added to the firm's prestigious Conviction Buy List.  But not all is lost for MasterCard, which is still rated a Buy at Goldman. <<read more>>
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CFSI to Host Symposium at U.S. Capitol

Washington, July 8, 2010 -- The Center for Financial Services Innovation will convene a symposium of the country’s foremost experts in financial transaction and savings products for lower-income, underbanked consumers at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, July 14. The Symposium will feature general purpose reloadable prepaid cards and how they can meet the financial needs of millions of Americans who are either unable or choose not to use traditional bank accounts. Panelists will explore consumers' preferences for general purpose reloadable prepaid card products (GPR cards), provide industry insights on emerging trends, and address public policy considerations, including interchange policy and consumer protection rules.



WHO: Panelists include Michael Barr, U.S. Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions; Melissa Koide, Policy Director, Center for Financial Services; Robert M. Hunt, AVP and Director, Payment Cards Center, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; Janis Bowdler, Deputy Director, Wealth-Building Policy Project, National Council of La Raza; Will Sowell, COO, Green Dot Corporation; John Thompson, Principal, Advent Financial; Brian Kibble-Smith, VP & General Counsel, Government Payment Services, Inc.; Josh Wright, Director of Financial Access Innovations, Office of Domestic Finance, U.S. Treasury Department.
WHEN: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm EST
WHERE: Congressional Meeting Room South in the Capitol Visitor Center at First and East Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC
WHY: This symposium seeks to inform Capitol Hill staffers and policymakers about underbanked consumers and the benefits of and appropriate policies for GPR cards. GPR cards are used by many unbanked or underbanked consumers as a variation of or as a substitute for bank accounts. Applying consumer protections to GPR cards will make the product more attractive to consumers and provide regulatory clarity for prepaid providers.


About CFSI:
The Center for Financial Services Innovation is the nation’s leading authority on financial services for underbanked consumers. Since 2004, its programs have focused on informing, connecting, and investing – gathering enhanced intelligence, brokering and supporting productive industry relationships, and fostering best-in-class products and strategies. A nonprofit affiliate of ShoreBank Corporation, CFSI works with leaders and innovators in the business, government and nonprofit sectors to transform the financial services landscape.


Source: Company press release.


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Chief Benefactors In Debit Likely To Change With Final Reform Bill



ISO & Agent Weekly | Thursday, July, 2010
By Kate Fitzgerald
A year or so from now, merchants likely will be paying less to accept debit cards, and financial institutions will be earning less revenue issuing them. And some issuers may have to reacquaint themselves with PIN-debit brands not associated with Visa Inc. or MasterCard Worldwide. These are among the results likely to transpire if Congress in the coming days signs off on the final version of financial-reform bill approved by a reconciliation conference committee in the early hours of June 25. A vote on the newly named Dodd-Frank Act could come as early as July 1, but could be pushed past the congressional holiday after a House and Senate conferees agreed late Tuesday to strip a proposed bank tax from the bill and add other budget offsetting mechanisms in its place.  The final bill includes a controversial amendment authored by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would require the Federal Reserve Board for the first time to set debit card interchange rates according to “reasonable and proportional” standards. The amendment also bans brand-exclusivity arrangements between card networks and debit card issuers.  “This has been quite a coup for merchants,” Philip Philliou, managing director of the consultancy Philliou Selwanes Partners LLC, tells PaymentsSource. Merchants have been “lobbying hard for years” for interchange-rate reductions, he notes...<<read more>>


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NTP Sues Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola for Infringement of Wireless Email Patents







DONALD E. STOUT,

PARTNER

Intellectual Property Law


RICHMOND, Va., July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- NTP Incorporated, the company founded by Tom Campana, the inventor of wireless email, yesterday filed lawsuits against Apple, Inc., Google Inc., HTC Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Motorola, Inc. in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for infringing NTP's eight patents related to the delivery of electronic mail over wireless communications systems. Each of the defendants is a manufacturer or developer of either wireless handheld devices or software applications used in the delivery of email across wireless communications systems.  

"Use of NTP's intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees. Unfortunately, litigation is our only means of ensuring the inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based, Tom Campana, and NTP shareholders are recognized, and are fairly and reasonably compensated for their innovative work and investment.  We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property."




NTP is best known for its long litigation and eventual settlement with Research in Motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry® wireless devices.  In that litigation, all the claims asserted at trial were found to be valid and willfully infringed by RIM, and the verdict was ultimately affirmed on appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Spurred by that litigation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) moved to re-examine NTP's patents.  In December 2009, in spite of the massive effort by the USPTO to overturn NTP's patents, the USPTO Board of Patent Appeals (USPTO Board) ruled that 67 of NTP's patent claims in four patents are valid, including three claims that RIM was found to have infringed.  Infringement of a single claim is all that is needed for a patent to be deemed violated.
NTP has also filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn the USPTO's remaining rejections of NTP's patent claims.
"The filing of suit today is necessary to ensure that those companies who are infringing NTP's patents will be required to pay a licensing fee," Mr. Stout continued.  "In view of the USPTO Board's ruling, the debate over whether Mr. Campana was an originator in the field of wireless email is over.  No patents in U.S. history have received as much scrutiny as NTP's patents.  We are delighted that the USPTO Board has recognized the groundbreaking innovation of Mr. Campana by confirming 67 of NTP's patent claims.  We are also confident that the USPTO's rejections, which are on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, will be overturned."
About NTP Incorporated
NTP Incorporated is a privately-held intellectual property firm based in Richmond, Virginia that was founded in 1992 by the late inventor Thomas Campana, Jr. and his partners. NTP's intellectual property includes patents relating to technologies involving wireless email which Mr. Campana developed as lead inventor in 1990.  Mr. Campana was awarded over 50 patents in his career and invented a wireless location technology that helps parents find their children which received first prize at the 1996 Consumer Electronics Show.  NTP has licensing agreements with Research in Motion Limited, Good Technology, Inc., Nokia Inc., and Visto Corporation.  






Contact:
Micheline Tang  
Kekst and Company
(212) 521-4800


SOURCE NTP Incorporated


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Americans' PINs at Risk for Skim Skams





Americans' PINs at risk for scams   New places and unfamiliar ATMs are fertile ground for 'skimming'



By Lucy Soto For the AJC



As you head into summer travel mode, think about arming yourself against more than just the sun and the mosquitoes.  Watch out for ATMs. Grabbing that extra bit of traveling cash in a new city can turn into a costly headache.



Americans are still traveling: About 176 million passengers will take to the U.S. skies this summer, according to the Air Transport Association. Another 26 million are travelling internationally.  So, going to the World Cup before the finale on July 11? Going out West to visit wide open spaces? Be careful.



New places and unfamiliar ATMs are fertile ground for scams that cost consumers and the ATM industry about $1 billion in annual global losses.



"In general, tourists on vacation travelling tend to have their guard down," said Mike Urban, an ATM fraud expert with Fair Isaac, the provider of FICO credit scoring. "You may not be as diligent as you normally are in certain situations. Criminals realize this."



And that makes the situation ripe for "skimming."



Skimming involves stealing the information from a card's magnetic strip or pilfering a consumer's personal identification number, or PIN. It's the most basic of ATM frauds. It can involve a peek over a shoulder or crooks posting small cameras or using telescopic devices to see the PIN. Skimming also happens with fake card readers and phony ATMs.



Criminals are even taking it up a notch. The basic tactics are being replaced with attacks on software in ATMs and ATM networks, or criminals who "phish" for PINs using false telephone text alerts. Some steal account information to pose as consumers who want to change their numbers.



"Anyone at or headed to the World Cup needs to be very careful," said Paul Henninger, vice president of products for Actimize, a risk management software company. "These national and international events, like the Olympics or the Super Bowl, are magnets for criminal activity."



Banks use fraud detection systems to track user behavior over billions of transactions all over the world. But the systems can be thrown off when there's a spike in unusual traffic, as with high tourist turnouts and variations in times and places of ATM usage that don't fit consumer patterns.



As a consequence, events like the World Cup in South Africa give criminals a short window of cover.



"What fraud systems look for is strange increases in volume and amount of transactions," Henninger said.



ATM fraud is a growing problem in the United States. A survey earlier this year found that 10 percent of all fraud victims in the U.S. experienced phony ATM cash withdrawals.



According to financial research company Javelin Strategy & Research, the number of records breached rose 16 percent in 2009.



Actimize surveyed financial services representatives in May 2009, and its report showed 70 percent of respondents saw an increase in fraud claims in 2008 compared to 2007. Of those, 58 percent had double-digit growth.



In the meantime, banks in other countries are moving toward new technologies to stem fraud. New chip-and-PIN cards have encrypted microprocessor chips that are more difficult to clone and require the user to enter a personal identification number.



Experts say the level of ATM fraud in the United States will increase as bordering countries Canada and Mexico move to the higher-security cards.



The encrypted smart cards have already become popular overseas where sophisticated skimming networks have flourished.



This can be a problem for U.S. travelers with their magnetic strip cards. Automated kiosks - like vending machines, bicycle rental racks in Paris, parking meters in some areas of London and toll and gas stations - accept only chip-and-PIN cards.



New York-based United Nations Federal Credit Union (UNFCU), a $3.1 billion institution with 88,000 members across 205 countries, has begun issuing chip-and-PIN Visa credit cards to its top-tier members who have had trouble using U.S.-issued cards overseas.



In May, a payment services director for behemoth retailer Wal-Mart touted its move to chip-and-PIN technology in its stores, a move that might nudge the U.S. to evolve from the magnetic strip card.



In the meantime, consumers, said Urban, need to be alert.



"It's something that's growing," he said. "It's certainly a global issue. Anywhere there's an ATM and there's a criminal that thinks they can get away with something."


How to protect your ATM info
Here are a few tips to prevent ATM fraud and insights into how criminals steal your personal identification numbers.
  • Always protect your PIN: Don't give the number to anyone and cover the keypad while you are entering it.

  • Beware of hand-lettered signs posted on the front of ATMs directing you to reinsert your card or enter your PIN multiple times.

  • Look for the unusual - strange caps, wires or foreign devices on card readers. If anything looks damaged or like it has been tampered with, stop immediately and find an alternative ATM.

  • If your card gets stuck or the cash doesn't come out, contact your financial institution immediately by calling the number on the back of your card. This is something called cash- or card-trapping, in which criminals insert devices to collect the dispensed money or hold the card long enough to steal its information.

  • If you travel abroad, tell your bank or credit union before you leave, so they can help if you need it while you are away. And make sure you carry all phone numbers for credit, ATM and debit cards in case they're stolen and you need to call. Don't, of course, carry them in your wallet or purse.

  • When travelling, never use an internet café computer to check e-mail or bank accounts. If hackers compromise your e-mail password, they can get to your accounts by, for example, asking for new passwords via e-mail.

  • Monitor your bank accounts. Many banks offer daily balance alerts, text message alerts for ATM usage and other instant account management tools.

  • Make sure your bank has up-to-date contact information, including your cell number, so they can notify you if they spot anything unusual.



Source: Mike Urban, fraud director at Fair Isaac, the provider of FICO credit scoring;bank and security Web sites.

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