Government regulation would hurt consumers by limiting competition, Canadian chief warns
Mar 31, 2009 Dana Flavelle - Business reporter

The head of Visa Canada chose a Toronto business audience to test the sales pitch he plans to deliver to Ottawa: Don't regulate the debit and credit card industry.

But the message fell, at least partly, on deaf ears.

While acknowledging that growing complaints about the industry have led to a Competition Bureau investigation and Senate hearings calling for caps on fees and rates, Tim Wilson said more government involvement would stifle innovation and choice.

As an example, he cited Visa's plans to enter Canada's debit market in competition with the bank-owned Interac system.

Although Visa debit cards would cost more to process than Interac cards, Wilson said they would also offer increased security, lower payment risk and more opportunities to shop online and outside Canada.

"There are no regulations that prohibit us from entering the market right now," Wilson said in an interview after his speech to the Economic Club of Toronto. "The concern is there will be regulations in future that will prohibit us from entering the market or limit the way in which we enter the market. And we're suggesting that would limit competition and therefore innovation and the value we can deliver to consumers."

The system could be in place as early as this fall if Canada's banks and other card issuers agree to it, he said.

He described the higher cost to business of handling Visa debit cards as "moderate."

Continue Reading at thestar.com

by Practical eCommerce Staff

Payment card industry compliance is confusing for many ecommerce merchants. But it potentially affects every merchant that accepts credit card payments. Failure to understand the PCI compliance standards could result in higher merchant account fees and fines from the credit card issuers.

Merchants oftentimes have similar general questions on PCI compliance. We posed some of them to Tim Erlin, principal product manager for nCircle, a security consulting and compliance firm that offers PCI-related services, among other compliance services. Those questions, and his answers, are below.

What is PCI?

Erlin: "PCI generally refers to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or the PCI DSS. This standard was developed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a consortium of the major credit card brands (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover). It represents the combination of two previous separate programs: the Visa Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) and MasterCard's Site Data Protection program (SDP). The goal of the PCI DSS is to specify a common standard for protecting cardholder data from compromise."
How does PCI compliance affect my ecommerce business?

Erlin: "If you accept credit cards as a form of payment, you are required to be compliant with the PCI DSS. In most cases, smaller merchants can achieve compliance by using compliant shopping carts and payment gateway services. If, however, you choose to collect and store credit card data as part of your business, you'll need to carefully consider the requirements of the PCI DSS."

"Larger volume merchants (more than 20,000 credit card transactions annually) will need to complete some specific validation requirements to demonstrate compliance with the PCI DSS. The requirements range from filling out a self-assessment questionnaire to an onsite audit from a qualified auditor. You can find out more details about merchant levels here."

Where can I learn more about PCI?

Continue Reading at Practical eCommerce

There are consumers that do not feel comfortable entering their credit card online when making a reservation at a hotel, and I can understand that. I am not one of those consumers though and I trust that when I enter my credit card details they are going to be sent to the hotel securely.

Lack of credit and debit card security when booking hotels online

Lack of card security

Well, that was until I received an email from a consumer who checked in at a small independent hotel in London that he had booked through a third-party hotel booking website. While he was filling in the usual form with address, passport number, he noticed they had handwritten on the reservation printout his credit card number, expiry date and more worryingly his CVC code.

To have this written down, in such an insecure manner is frightening.

Concerns over card safety

I have never thought about this until now, but when I enter my debit or credit details to reserve the hotel room does the third-party booking site store these details, and how secure are they? How long are the details kept for? Does the booking site have to adhere to any security standards?

As a consumer, I enter my credit or debit card details at booking time thinking that the electronic transaction is safe and that my card would not be billed anyway. I pay directly to the hotel with my card on an electronic terminal by entering my PIN code safely.

Open gateway to fraud

What concerns me more is that I always check that I am entering my details on a secure server (begins with https://) and I check to make sure that there is a padlock in the bottom of my browser but that means nothing if the hotel search website is going to send the details insecure.

If the hotel booking website transfers all the credit and debit card data to any hotel and any human staff at the hotel can write down the details and then go shopping online. It would be interesting to hear from hotels and hotel booking sites because this is worrying as a consumer.

I am interested to hear of any similar stories with hotel security on credit and debit cards.

• Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to 'B' from 'B+';
• $2 billion senior secured revolving credit facility due 2013 to 'BB-/RR2' from 'BB/RR2';
• $13 billion senior secured term loan B due 2014 to 'BB-/RR2' from 'BB/RR2';
• $3.75 billion 9.875% senior unsecured notes due 2015 to 'CCC/RR6' from 'B-/RR6';
• $3 billion 10.55% senior unsecured notes with four-year mandatory PIK interest due 2015 to 'CCC/RR6' from 'B-/RR6'; and
• $2.5 billion 11.25% senior subordinated notes due 2016 to 'CC/RR6' from 'CCC+/RR6'.

The Rating Outlook has been revised to Stable from Negative.  The ratings downgrade reflects the following considerations:

• The weak global economic environment is expected to lead to a decline in consumer spending in 2009 in the U.S. and many developed economies which is expected to negatively impact FDC's revenue and profitability to a degree not previously anticipated;
• Consumer spending in the U.S. during the economic downturn has been and is expected to continue to be heavily weighted to large discount retailers relative to normal spending patterns which negatively impacts FDC's revenue and profitability as it receives lower payments per transactions from large retailers. Higher growth in PIN debit card usage relative to credit cards (which itself is partly a reflection of the shift in spending to large retailers) has a further, albeit modest, negative impact on revenue and profitability as FDC typically derives slightly lower net revenue per PIN debit transaction than credit;
• As a result of the economic decline and mix shift issues cited above, Fitch expects FDC to report a decline in EBITDA on modest revenue growth in 2009;
• Fitch expects FDC's leverage (total debt to operating EBITDA) to increase to 10.0 times (x) in 2009 from 9.2x at the end of 2008 as debt increases from PIK interest and the previously mentioned expected decline in EBITDA. Prior expectation for a net reduction in debt by 2010 is likely delayed until at least 2011.
• The Stable Outlook reflects the following considerations:
• The aforementioned trends are partially mitigated by a continued shift in mix of payment type to card-based payments which Fitch expects, as a secular growth trend, will continue to enable FDC to grow revenue faster than the broader economy;
• Expectations for positively trending credit protection measures beyond 2009 from profitability improvement and eventual debt reduction;
• FDC remains the largest provider of merchant processing services worldwide with healthy total segment EBITDA margins near 25% and expectations for a return to positive free cash flow (FCF), in excess of PIK interest, in 2011;
• FDC has achieved roughly $300 million of annualized savings as of December 2008, more than originally anticipated. The company expects to recognize an additional $125 million of future annual cost savings in 2009 and beyond, further enabling profitability improvement.

A trend towards the resumption of normalized growth and EBITDA margins is important for FDC in 2010 and 2011 as Fitch believes the company needs to generate sufficient incremental cash flow to manage future higher cash interest expense. Specifically, the company's $3.0 billion of 10.55% PIK notes convert to cash pay after September 2011 and the company's $12.7 billion senior secured term loan will need to be refinanced (or paid down through equity issuance) in September 2014. Fitch believes the growth necessary to meet these future cash needs is reasonably achievable at the current time but susceptible to a prolonged economic downturn beyond 2009.

Positive rating actions could occur as FDC begins to de-leverage its balance sheet and generate positive FCF sufficient to effect a net reduction in debt. Current PIK interest of over $300 million per year enables the company to report positive FCF but has driven increasing debt balances since the 2007 LBO.

Negative rating actions could occur if the economic downturn is longer than expected or mix shift issues continue to negatively impact FDC to a degree that Fitch believes would reasonably be expected to prevent the company from generating enough cash to meet current or future expected levels of cash interest expense.

Liquidity as of Dec. 31, 2008 was adequate with $406 million in cash plus $1.7 billion available under a $1.8 billion secured revolving credit facility which expires September 2013. FDC's cash balance at the end of the year was negatively impacted by a delay in receiving payment on an approximate $246 million receivable which was subsequently received on Jan. 2, 2009.

Total debt as of Dec. 31, 2008 was approximately $22.6 billion and consisted primarily of the following: i) $18 million outstanding under a $1.8 billion secured revolving credit facility expiring September 2013; ii) $12.7 billion outstanding under a secured term loan B maturing September 2014; iii) $3.75 billion in 9.875% senior unsecured notes maturing September 2015; iv) $3 billion in 10.55% notes maturing September 2015 with mandatory PIK interest through September 2011 and cash interest thereafter; and v) $2.5 billion of 11.25% senior subordinated notes maturing September 2016. In addition, a subsidiary of New Omaha Holdings L.P. (the parent company of FDC) has outstanding $1 billion original value senior unsecured PIK notes due 2016. These notes are not obligations of FDC, and FDC provides no credit support of these notes which, as a result, are not included in either the calculation of total indebtedness for FDC or leverage ratios.

Rating strengths include:

• Stable business model, largely driven by growth in the volume of electronic payments which as an increasing mix of overall consumer payment methods, represents a mitigating factor against the risk of a general economic decline;
• Significant portion of FDC's Financial Services revenue stream is under long-term contract, is recurring in nature and carries high contract renewal rates;
• Strong revenue diversification in terms of products and customers with the largest customer representing less than 3.5% of total revenue in 2007. In 2008, only the Financial Services segment had a customer in excess of 10% of segment revenue (12% specifically which includes reimbursable revenue). FDC also benefits from increasing geographic diversification resulting from its higher growth international business;
• Significant growth opportunities in international markets which are heavily fragmented competitively and generally nascent opportunities in terms of the penetration of electronic payments;
• FDC has leading market share in its primary businesses with an inherent advantage in its significant scale and scope of operations relative to its nearest competitors.

Rating concerns include:

• Limited financial flexibility to manage adverse changes to its operating model given leverage (total debt/operating EBITDA) of 9.2x and cash interest coverage of 1.4x as of December 2008;
• The dissolution of Chase Paymentech creates a significant competitor in JP Morgan Chase which did not previously exist in the merchant acquisition space and could lead to market share loss and/or pressure on profitability;
• On-going consolidation among financial institutions could lead to customer losses or pressure on profitability in the card processing business from banks' increased leverage in price negotiation;
• Continued execution risk from data center and processing platform consolidation initiatives which if improperly managed could significantly impair profitability;
• FDC continues to evaluate selective acquisitions, a portion of which could be debt financed.

Fitch does not expect the recently completed dissolution of FDC's Chase Paymentech joint venture to have a material impact on the company's EBITDA and cash flow in the intermediate term. However, a material decline in the business assumed by FDC following the dissolution of the joint venture could negatively impact ratings in the future. In 2007, Fitch estimates that Chase Paymentech's standalone EBITDA was approximately $650 million. FDC held a 49% equity interest in the joint venture.

The Recovery Ratings (RRs) for FDC reflect Fitch's recovery expectations under a distressed scenario, as well as Fitch's expectation that the enterprise value of FDC, and hence recovery rates for its creditors, will be maximized in a restructuring scenario (as a going concern) rather than a liquidation scenario. In deriving a distressed enterprise value, Fitch applies a 15% discount to FDC's estimated operating EBITDA (adjusted for equity earnings in affiliates) of approximately $2.5 billion for the latest 12 months (LTM) ended Dec. 31, 2008 which is equivalent to Fitch's estimate of FDC's total interest expense and maintenance capital spending. Fitch then applies a 6x distressed EBITDA multiple, which considers FDC's prior public trading multiple and that a stress event would likely lead to multiple contraction. As is standard with Fitch's recovery analysis, the revolver is fully drawn and cash balances fully depleted to reflect a stress event. The 'RR2' for FDC's secured bank facility reflects Fitch's belief that 71%-90% recovery is realistic. The 'RR6' for FDC's senior and subordinated notes reflect Fitch's belief that 0%-10% recovery is realistic. The 'CC/RR6' rating for the subordinated notes reflects the minimal recovery prospects and inherent subordination in a recovery scenario.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.

Fitch Ratings, New York
Jason Paraschac, +1-212-908-0746
Nick P. Nilarp, CFA, +1-212-908-0649
Melissa Link, CFA, +1-212-908-0611
Media Relations:
Cindy Stoller, +1-212-908-0526
cindy.stoller@fitchratings.com

Attention News Editors:

Interac Association Supports Proposed Legislation to Help Combat Identity Theft

OTTAWA, March 31 /CNW/ - Interac Association joined federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson today as he announced legislation to help combat identity theft and applauds the federal government's action. Identity theft, the theft of personal information, can lead to a variety of crimes that significantly impact consumers, business and government, including payment card fraud.

"The government is taking decisive action today to help stop the identity theft domino effect," said Caroline Hubberstey, Director of Public and Government Affairs, Interac Association. Interac Association has long advocated for amendments to the Criminal Code to address legislative gaps relating to identity theft.

About Interac Association
-------------------------
A recognized world leader in debit card services, Interac Association is responsible for the development and operations of the INTERAC network, a national payment network that allows Canadians to access their money through
Automated Banking Machines and point-of-sale terminals across Canada.  Interac Association was founded in 1984 and is comprised of a diverse  membership that includes banks, trust companies, credit unions, caisses populaires, merchants, and technology and payment related companies. Other INTERAC-branded and related services include: INTERAC Online, for secure online payments directly from a bank account, INTERAC Email Money Transfer, for the transfer of money from a bank account to anyone with an email address, and Cross Border Debit, for point-of-sale access at more than 1.5 million U.S. retailers.

For further information: Tina Romano, Interac Association, Phone: (416) 869-5062, email: tromano@interac.ca

18 – 19 June 2009
Conference, Expo & Awards

How to maintain profitability and achieve excellence in emerging markets

Join us this year at Europe's leading Cards and Payments Conference and Expo in Prague, 18-19 June 2008.

Event Summary

Cards & Payments Europe 2009 will focus on emerging markets within Central and Eastern Europe.

Central & Eastern Europe is experiencing rapid movement from emerging market to prime market in the payment system landscape. The restructuration of these payments services to meet EU regulatory demands and the Single European Payment Area (SEPA) standards is a big challenge for all players involved and just the beginning of the payment globalization with all the opportunities that it entails.

Now more than ever, it is crucial for existing market players to learn new skills and strategies to stave off increased competition, maintain profitability in the new European cards and payments realm and achieve excellence in emerging markets. View our reference guide for further information on last year’s successful cards events.

Just some of the topics to be addressed this year include:

Focusing on Emerging Markets: Cross-border Business Models

* Fund loyalty, retailer funded loyalty programmes
* What are the plans for commercial cards?

Emerging markets: what can you learn from other countries?

* PSD - (Payment Services Directive) and SEPA
* Case studies from western and Central Europe: mobile payments and electronic payments, how their experience would work in emerging markets

Eastern European cards market: top 5 issues

* Consumer education and incentivisation
* Navigating differing regulatory regimes across Eastern Europe

Technology and cross borders challenges

* The infrastructure challenge: Contactless Payments Readers
* M-payments: beyond O2’s trial – How successful have recent trials been?
* How new payments technologies can work in emerging markets and which technologies will deliver the expected results?
* The value of partnerships in international expansion

Agenda

'For further information please contact VRL Knowledge Bank

Data security best practices for PCI DSS compliance
David Mortman, Contributor 03.31.2009

PCI is not perfect, but the point isn't perfection.


Every time a company that is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is breached, the masses form with their torches and pitchforks and declare that PCI doesn't work. This was the case with two recent high-profile data breaches: the March 2008 Hannaford Bros. Co. data breach and January's Heartland Payment Systems Inc. breach.

The problem isn't that PCI doesn't work. The problem is the perception that if a company is PCI compliant, it is secure and will never suffer a data breach. The reality is that PCI, like any other regulation -- be it HIPAA, GLBA, etc. -- merely sets a baseline for what needs to happen in order to handle certain kinds of data securely and to avoid fines, loss of services or license to operate. In the case of PCI, it means that when (yes when, not if) a merchant or other company involved in the payment-processing life cycle faces a security problem, it won't be fined by Visa, Mastercard or one of the other members of the PCI Security Standards Council.

PCI is not perfect, but the point isn't perfection. Rather, the idea is to raise the bar to a reasonable level. PCI DSS version 1.2 has corrected several issues from earlier iterations, and the standard will surely continue to evolve as the PCI SSC identifies portions that don't work well or issues that were missed in the past. Case in point: in both the Hannaford and Heartland breaches, the miscreants were using Trojans to pass personally identifiable information (PII) to external servers over the Internet. It would be surprising if the next version of the PCI standard did not mandate some sort of monitoring of outbound data flows for PII.

Continue Reading at SearchSecurity

WASHINGTON -- New transaction fee rate increases announced by credit card companies Visa and MasterCard are slightly under 2 cents per affected transaction, yet are expected to raise more than $600 million in revenues, according to a report by DigitalTransactions.com

MasterCard will increase its "Network Access and Brand Usage Fee" April 17, from 0.5 cents per transaction to 1.85 cents—a 270 percent increase—while Visa will increase its "Acquiring Processing Fee" from 0.5 cents to 1.95 cents—a 290 percent increase, with additional fees possible, according to NACS—the Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing, which opposed the proposed hikes.

"This begs the question: How can two ‘competitors’ announce price increase of nearly 300 percent at the same time in a recession?" NACS Senior Vice President of Government Relations Lyle Beckwith said in a statement. "From what we’ve seen with credit card interchange fees, the answer is obviously that two competitors with excessive and abusive market power can do what they want."

Merchant-acquiring experts expect merchants to bear the cost of these fees because acquirers will simply pass them through to clients. "The ones we’ve talked to aren’t too excited about it," an acquiring executive, who asked for anonymity, told the Web site. "It’s one of the bigger fee hikes."

In a statement Visa told DigitalTransactions.com: "Visa Inc. regularly reviews its pricing, as any business would, and makes adjustments where appropriate depending on such factors as the value delivered to clients and the need to be competitive. Over the years, Visa has become a symbol of international acceptance, reliability and convenience, based on its commitment to provide superior value to clients. These clients, in turn, are able to offer competitive products and services to their customers. Financial institutions set their pricing to cardholders and merchants."

In 2007, credit card fees cost convenience stores $7.6 billion, with the largest component being credit card interchange fees, which are a fixed fee and a percentage of each transaction, according to NACS. These fees average 1.8 percent in the U.S., which has the highest interchange rate of any industrialized country.

"The credit card fees that U.S. retailers pay are outrageous," Beckwith said. "These newly announced fee increases are beyond outrageous. At a time when small businesses are feeling the economic pain of the recession, it is unconscionable that Visa and MasterCard can give themselves their own ‘bailout’ by slapping 300 percent increases on their fees."

It is always interesting to check out the latest annual fraud figures from APACS as they continue to show how ineffective and poor value for money chip and PIN has been.

By Glynn Davis

While it has helped reduce fraudulent activity in-store this has been at the cost of rocketing criminal activity within the area of card not present (CNP), which involves all transactions undertaken over the internet and phone.

Criminals continue to find this a much more lucrative domain in which to rip-off consumers and retailers compared with in-store where chip and PIN has made their job much more difficult. CNP fraud increased 13 per cent over the past year, to now account for 54 per cent of all card fraud losses.

APACS suggests this highlights the need for greater take-up of online fraud prevention systems such as MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa. This may well be true but there appears to be little effort being put into promoting this by the card schemes or the banks.

The most worrying aspect of the APACS fraud figures is the significant growth in card ID theft, whereby a genuine card and genuine PIN are stolen. Fraud committed through such means has increased 39 per cent over the past 12 months.

Because this enables theft to take place in-store it suggests that the overall effectiveness of chip and PIN is even more limited than the early critics of the technology had initially predicted. The criminals continue to remain numerous steps ahead of the banks and we are all paying the price for this.

Editor's Note:  Just wait until hackers get their fraudy little fingers on a web based PIN Debit offering.  That'll be fraudy finger licking good. 

glynnd@theretailbulletin.com

4 ways on how to hack myspace account / profile password |TECHOTIPS

by Rajesh Chaukwale

In my previous articles, i mentioned about software to hack msn. I was asked by many of readers about methods to hack myspace account passwords. So, i have written this myspace hacking article which informs about methods used to hack myspace profile / account password. Hacking myspace account is illegal. So, this article on how to hack myspace account password is meant for educational purpose only.

Hack myspace account/profile password

I will cover 4 methods over here:

1. Myspace Phishing.
2. Keylogging
3. Social engineering
4. Hacker virus at myspace.

So, lets start…

1. Myspace Phishing:

I have taken this method first because i think this is the most popular method/way of hacking myspace. I studied various myspace surveys taken on web about hacking myspace. The results of these surveys show "Phishing" as the most used method to hack myspace and to note…"Phishing is favorite method of myspace hackers". So, friends.. beware of myspace Phishing. Myspace staff is working hard to avoid these myspace phishers. Phishing not only allows you to hack myspace but also almost any email account. You have to only get the trick used to make a phisher, which i think is very easy. I learnt it without any difficulty. But, remember, this is only for educational purpose. I will not extend this topic over here as i have added more on Phishing in my articles Hack Myspace using Myspace phisher .

2.Keylogging:

This is my second favorite, as only thing you have to do is remotely install a keylogger (if you don't have any physical access to victim computer). Keylogging becomes more easy if you have physical access to victim computer as only thing you have to do is install a keylogger and direct it to your destination so that it will send all recorded keystrokes to pointed destination. What a keylogger does is it records the keystrokes into a log file and then you can use this log to get required myspace password and thus can hack myspace account. You can use Ardamax keylogger to hack myspace account password. I will write over this in my future articles.

3. Social engineering:

This sounds to be pretty not working at beginning. Even i was neglecting this way. But, once, i thought of using it against my friend on orkut and i got his gmail password very easily by this method. I think many of you might be knowing how what this social engg is. For newbies, social engg is method of retrieving password or answer of security question simply be quering with the victim. You have to be very careful while using this as victim must not be aware of your intention. Just ask him cautiously using your logic.

4. Hacker virus:

I was not knowing about this method used by hackers at myspace untill i had read this article. I wasn't knowing that viruses are being circulated over myspace and was considering myspace as safe. But to my surprise, i was wrong. So, friends, be cautious while surfing myspace.

So far, i found these myspace hacking methods as best and working ways to hack myspace account passwords. I never encourage hacking myspace or any email account…just wanna make you cognizant about myspace dangers online. I will appreciate your effort if you mention any other myspace hacking method you found great to hack myspace account password….

Enjoy Hacking…..

Vast Computer Spy Network Found: Report
By Reuters 2009-03-30

Embassies, foreign ministries, government offices and the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York were among those infiltrated, said the researchers, who have detected computer espionage in the past.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast electronic spying operation that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

In a report provided to the newspaper, a team from the Munk Center for International Studies in Toronto said at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries had been breached in less than two years by the spy system, which it dubbed GhostNet.

Continue Reading at eWeek

Retailers ask Congress to lower credit-card fees - NJBIZ.com

A coalition of retailers today launched a campaign to lobby Congress to require credit card companies to negotiate with retailers in an effort to lower the “interchange” fee, averaging 2 percent, that retailers pay on each credit card transaction.

The Merchants Payments Coalition launched the campaign this morning during a telephone press conference with representatives of the National Retail Federation, the Food Marketing Institute, the National Grocers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Mallory Duncan, general counsel of NRF, said the coalition seeks federal legislation to require the nation’s banking industry, which issues credit cards through Visa, MasterCard and other entities, to negotiate with a collation of retailers over credit card fees and rules. For example, retailers might seek an agreement to offer price discounts to customers using credit cards that are less expensive to the retailer, he said.

“Retailing is the most competitive industry in the U.S., with an after-tax profit margin of about 2 percent; in the grocery segment it is even less — about 1 percent,” Duncan said. He said a 2 percent credit card fee wipes out the retailer’s profit and leads to higher prices that are charged to both cash and credit customers.

A spokesman for Visa was not available to comment, but the company’s Web site states that retailers are allowed to offer discounts to cash-paying customers, and states, “Visa believes that any inappropriate intervention into interchange, if successful, would result in fewer payment choices and a reduction in benefits for both consumers and merchants, and possibly even higher checkout costs.”

“We don’t think we can fix the economic crisis without addressing the incentives behind irresponsible credit-card lending by reforming the interchange fee system and addressing this unfair burden on American small businesses and consumers,” said Hank Armour, chief executive of the National Association of Convenience Stores, on this morning’s call.

Interchange fees have increased 300 percent in the past seven years, said Jennifer Hatcher, group vice president of government relations at the Food Marketing Institute.

The coalition said $48 billion interchange fees were paid last year.

Scott Hardman, chief executive of Rutter’s Farm Stores in central Pennsylvania, said, “Credit card interchange fees were $4.6 million for my stores alone. In this economy, this directly affects my business and also my customers.”

credit card fees, interchange, visa, mastercard,

Finextra: MasterCard introduces PayPass mobile stickers

MasterCard introduces PayPass mobile stickers
Blaze Mobile has teamed with MasterCard to offer a PayPass sticker that can be attached to any mobile device and used for contactless payment transactions at 141,000 PayPass-enabled merchant locations.

The sticker transmits card information to the merchant's point-of-sale terminal via RFID technology, allowing consumers to "tap" their mobile device on a PayPass reader to complete their transaction.

The mobile payment sticker is tied to a prepaid account and is issued by MetaBank.

Continue Reading at Finextra