Tom Zeller Jr. reports for the New York Times in Tuesday's edition on the illicit trading in stolen credit card data that takes place on the Internet.

"There's so much to this," said Jim Melnick, a former Russian affairs analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now the director of threat development at iDefense, a company in Reston, Va., that tracks cybercrime.

"The story that needs to be told is the larger, long-term threat to the American financial industry. It's a cancer. It's not going to kill you now, but slowly, over time."

Robin Sidel and Mitchell Pacelle report for the Wall St. Journal in Tuesday's edition on the banking industry implications of the security breach reported last Friday involving up to 40 million cardholders.

In the end, banks often conclude that it is more expensive to replace compromised cards than to step up account monitoring and absorb fraud losses when they occur. Visa estimates that when breaches do happen, only 2% of the exposed cards end up with any fraudulent charges on them.

MSNBC carries this evening's Associated Press update on the rumored Google payment service, reportedly codenamed Google Wallet.

AFP reported tonight on some of the implications for cardholders in Asia-Pacific following last Friday's announcement by MasterCard of a security breach at CardSystems Solutions.

In Australia, about 50,000 Mastercard and another 77,000 Visa card holders are believed to have been at risk, ABC radio reported Tuesday. However, the banks issuing the cards said that most of those affected have already been issued with replacements after irregular transactions were picked up as early as last December.

American Express has announced a number of organization and management changes driven in part by the previously announced retirement of David House.

Of note, Amex's Global Network Services business (it's bank co-branding initiative) will now report to CFO Gary Crittenden. In addition, Bill Glenn will assume worldwide responsibility for operations, pricing, marketing and strategy for the development of the American Express closed-loop merchant network.

RSA Security has announced two US banks (Allentown, Pennsylvania-based American
Bank and West Chester, Pennsylvania-based Stonebridge Bank) who will be adopting RSA's SecurID two-factor authentication for use by their online banking customers.

A.T. Kearney has announced the results of a new study that concludes retail banking customers show little inherent attachment to their financial institutions

Eplaw's Ethan Preston explores some of the potential implications of the card data security breach at CardSystems Solutions announced late Friday by MasterCard.

Lee Gomes reports for the Wall St. Journal on inside the world of phishers and phishing attacks.

Phishers, not surprisingly, are savvy about their targets. For instance, it wasn't just a coincidence that Washington Mutual was a phisher favorite. Mr. Abad says it was widely known in the phishing underground that a flaw in the communications between the bank's ATM machines and its mainframe computers made it especially easy to manufacture fake Washington Mutual ATM cards.

Michele Chandler reports for the San Jose Mercury News on a new partnership between Pay By Touch and VeriFone.

Pay By Touch is negotiating to bring its technology to a Bay Area grocer sometime later this year, said John Morris, the company's president and chief operating officer. He said a deal could be formalized within the next two months with a food chain he declined to name. Pay By Touch is also in discussions with fast food restaurants, discount stores and convenience chains.

Subway's Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC) has announced the selection of Chockstone, Inc. as its partner for comprehensive gift and loyalty card services for all of its restaurant locations in the U.S. and Canada.

See the following Ask Glenbrook question we recently received:

I have a small business in the U.S. and outsource a bit of work to China, and I'm looking for a good way to send payment to them. Can you suggest a reliable, cost effective way to do this?

China FX is highly regulated, so beneficiaries must bring in paperwork to their banks to obtain funds, so delivery of actual funds can be delayed.

Eric Dash reports in Monday's New York Times on the card security breach reported on Friday by MasterCard.

The chief of the credit card processing company whose computer system was penetrated by data thieves, exposing 40 million cardholders to a risk of fraud, acknowledged yesterday that the company should not have been retaining those records.

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