Visa chief enterprise risk officer Ellen Richey told security experts today that payment card data fraud rates remain near historic lows despite economic woes and high-profile compromises, and called for continued industry investment, collaboration and innovation, three key components in keeping the electronic payment system secure in the future. She made her comments to a gathering of business, government, academic and law enforcement officials at Visa's Global Security Summit, its third cross-functional symposium on payment security, held in Washington, DC. READ MORE »

Amazon Payments has just published a new best practices guide for Checkout by Amazon.

MasterCard Worldwide has announced the issuance of the 50 millionth MasterCard PayPass card or device. In the last year, the number of PayPass cards and devices more than doubled. According to MasterCard, "this significant PayPass momentum demonstrates not only the demand for simple solutions when it comes to payments, but also the continued secular shift toward electronic payments as validated by recent data1 that indicates 41 percent of consumers use cash less often today than they did two years ago." READ MORE »

LendingClub.com, a peer lending network that brings together investors and creditworthy borrowers, has announced that it has closed a $12 million Series B round of funding. Morgenthaler Ventures led the round and is joined by existing investors, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. Rebecca Lynn, a Morgenthaler Principal, is joining Lending Club’s board of directors. READ MORE »

UK card fraud loss figures released by APACS, the UK payments association, show that card fraud losses totalled £609.9m in 2008. The two main areas of fraud were on transactions not protected by chip and PIN: specifically internet, phone and mail order fraud; and fraud abroad - committed by criminals using stolen UK card details in countries yet to upgrade to chip and PIN - which has nearly doubled in two years. READ MORE »

Discover Financial Services has reported its financial results for the fiscal quarter ending Feb. 28, 2009. Managed loans of $51 billion were essentially unchanged from the prior quarter and up 7% from the prior year; Discover Card sales volume declined 8% from the prior year to $21 billion. Total company expenses were down 7% from the prior year.

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