Payment Cards Posts

Tackling The “Middle Ground” of Payments

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

A growing number of businesses today are tackling the “middle ground” of payments – or the spending that falls between very low- and very high-ticket items, and that is done with suppliers that may not be high-volume, but that still invoice regularly, according to a recent report by J.P. Morgan. After all, the ends of the payment spectrum already have been taken care of, at least at many companies. Purchasing cards usually work well for low-dollar, frequent purchases, while ACH capably handles high-dollar transactions.

To target this group of payments, which so far, has largely been paper-based, companies are turning to single-use accounts. They’re also expanding their use of p-cards. (more…)

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Payment Card Fraud

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

A recent study by Richard J. Sullivan of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City looked at security within the payment card industry. As its title indicates, “The Changing Nature of U.S. Card Payment Fraud: Issues for Industry and Public Policy,” focuses primarily on potential public policy responses to payment card security. Even so, it offers insight and information of use to accounts payable professionals.

Since 2005, at least 2,221 breaches of card data in the U.S. have been made public; these encompass nearly 500 million records. Just eight extraordinarily large breaches – TJX, TD Ameritrade and Heartland Payment Systems, to name a few – account for about four-fifths of these records. So, while nonbank payment processors accounted for just two percent of the breaches, these covered nearly 40 percent of the records compromised. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of breaches are the work of outsiders. However, more than a fifth are a result of accidental disclosures by insiders. (more…)

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The Durbin Amendment

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Last Thursday, the Senate voted to approve an amendment, SA 3989, sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. The amendment inserts a section, “Reasonable Fees and Rules for Payment Card Transactions,” into the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. As you might guess from the title, the section sets forth several guidelines covering the transaction fees that an issuer or payment card network can charge on debit card transactions; the amendment doesn’t address credit card transactions. (more…)

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