On the New York Times Bits blog, Saul Hansell writes about PayPal's fraud risk management techniques - noting that "you may not have ever bought anything with PayPal, but it’s got a file on you anyway, just in case."

Accertify has announced that its Interceptas platform has been chosen by eHarmony, the online service that uses relationship science to match singles seeking long-term relationships. READ MORE

Verifi, Inc., a provider of transaction risk management services for card-not-present merchants, has announced that Jennifer Schulz has been appointed CEO effective immediately. Schulz succeeds the company’s entrepreneurial founder Matthew Katz, who will remain an active part of the company as Verifi’s Chairman. READ MORE

FICO has announced the general availability of its Falcon Fraud Manager 6.0 - saying "it is the first payment card fraud management solution to incorporate adaptive analytics, an innovation that accelerates financial institutions’ ability to spot new fraud patterns and prevent them from causing extensive damage. Early response to this innovation has been enthusiastic, with multiple projects already underway, including an installation at a major, U.S.-based credit card issuer." READ MORE

CyberSource has announced the availability of its Airline Online Fraud Report, a study of the impact of online fraud on the airline industry. CyberSource commissioned the study in association with Airline Information LLC. It can be downloaded at: http://forms.cybersource.com/forms/airlinefraudpr. READ MORE

CyberSource has announced that its Authorize.Net small business solution will be releasing a new Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS) - calling it "a robust, rules-based fraud detection system that allows online merchants to identify and handle suspicious transactions using multiple filters, tools and custom settings." READ MORE

TowerGroup is predicting that US branded total card credit losses will peak at $55.6 billion in 2009 because the recessionary economic conditions are making it difficult for consumers to repay credit card debt. TowerGroup's Brian Riley points out, however, that not all losses are the result of honest inability to pay, warning that intentional cardholder losses from abuse and fraud may cost the industry as much as $10 billion. READ MORE

Guardian Analytics, a provider of online account fraud prevention software for financial services institutions, has announced the appointment of Terry Austin to chief executive officer, effective immediately. Austin succeeds company founder Tom Miltonberger, who will focus on the future direction of Guardian Analytics’ products. The company also announced today that security industry veteran Irfan Salim, president and CEO of MarkMonitor, has joined the Guardian Analytics board of directors. READ MORE

41st Parameter has announced that US Airways has selected FraudNet to detect and prevent Card Not Present (CNP) fraud across multiple reservation channels including online, kiosk and phone. READ MORE

The Bank Fraud Forum Blog has been launched by Memento Security.

Fraud is a serious issue that deserves serious discussion. The Bank Fraud Forum℠ has two primary objectives: 1) to convey insights, opinions and comments on the world of financial crime, and 2) to serve as an open, albeit virtual, forum for the fraud fighting community. Our goal is to offer intelligent, timely and thought-provoking analysis of trends, news, best practices and 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

The latest issue of Economic Perspectives published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has been published. This issue presents selected papers based on the proceedings of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's eighth annual Payments Conference, Payments Fraud: Perception Versus Reality, held on June 5–6, 2008.

Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg and Jay DeWitt are participating in this year's Merchant Risk Council e-Commerce Payments and Risk Conference this week in Las Vegas. This is the seventh year for the conference and it's completely sold out.

On our new PaymentsViews.com web site, Allen has posted his highlights from today's morning and afternoon Platinum Day sessions. Today's topics included the CyberSource 2008 Fraud Survey findings and PIN-debit for eCommerce.

Jay will be leading a panel discussion on Thursday on "Payments as Business Strategy" - highlighting how payments management is an important part of any eCommerce Merchant's overall strategy, both in keeping expenses in line but also, and, even more importantly, contributing to top line merchant revenues.

Stay tuned for more updates here by Allen and Jay from this important annual conference for eCommerce merchants.

ThreatMetrix has announced an upgrade to its isoftware-as-a-service fraud and abuse-prevention solution. Calling it "the first major release of the product since ThreatMetrix relocated to the United States from Australia at the end of last year, ThreatMetrix Fraud Prevention 2.0 includes more than two dozen feature enhancements, all of which are designed to help merchants and financial institutions thwart cyber criminals before the first transaction." READ MORE

First Data Corp. has a growing collection of white papers in its Thought Leadership Library covering a wide range of payments-related topics. The latest papers include:

• One-to-One Customer Risk Management by Krista Tedder - Product Owner, Risk Management and Fraud Solutions
• Bill Payment Trends: Major Shifts in Consumer Behavior Require Comprehensive Planning

Verifi, a provider of transaction risk management services for card-not-present merchants, has announced that the company has signed a preferred partner agreement with Chase Paymentech. "Verifi will recommend Chase Paymentech as a preferred merchant account provider to its merchant customers, and will provide its transaction risk management services, including chargeback prevention and management, to Chase Paymentech’s card-not-present merchants." READ MORE

Chase Card Services has announced that it recently received a patent (US 7,480,631) from the United States Patent Office for its fraud prevention technology, First Watch Intelligence. READ MORE

The CNP Payment Forum (previously titled DRF EU) has announced its 6th annual conference to be held in Barcelona on May 11-13, 2009. READ MORE

The Merchant Risk Council is holding its 7th Annual e-Commerce Payments and Risk Conference at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort on March 10-12, 2009. Former US Congressman, Governor of Pennsylvania and the nation’s first Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, will be a special keynote speaker at the event. READ MORE

Kimberly Kiefer Peretti of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the US Department of Justice has authored a paper titled "Data Breaches: What the Underground World of “Carding” Reveals" to be published in the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Journal. READ MORE

APACS, the UK payments association, has issued a press release advising "about the recent rise in popularity of an old-style phone scam that involves fraudsters duping unsuspecting cardholders into revealing their card details by pretending to be from either their bank, card company or one of the international card schemes – Visa and MasterCard." READ MORE

The Press Association in the UK reports that "one in four Britons have been the victim of credit or debit card fraud, research has shown. Around 26% of people have now had their card used fraudulently, up from 21% when the same research was carried out 12 months ago, according to life assistance group CPP."

ThreatMetrix, a on-demand fraud detection company, has announced that it has relocated to the US from Australia where the firm had been based since its inception in 2005. "A pioneer in device identification technology, which is quickly becoming the de facto standard in online fraud detection, ThreatMetrix will operate from Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. The company will continue to maintain research-and-development operations in Australia." READ MORE

Visa has announced that it is "the first in the payments industry to introduce a new type of fraud evaluation technology in Latin America that is expected to help card issuers reduce payment card fraud. The new technology called, Visa Advanced Authorization provides risk scores & risk condition codes in real-time to issuers which will help them decline more fraudulent transactions." READ MORE

iovation has announced that it "helped eCommerce companies stop more than 3.5 million fraudulent activities in 2008. Using innovative device reputation technology to identify computers that have been associated with fraud or abuse in the past, iovation enables online businesses to proactively block bad transactions before they happen to reduce fraudulent activities and other unwanted behavior across multiple industries." READ MORE

In an article titled "One Hacker's Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards", Kevin Poulsen writes for the January 2009 issue of Wired about the black market world of stolen credit card data. "According to court documents, he picked his targets from the FDIC's Web site, choosing small regional banks and credit unions that couldn't afford top-notch security and pulling down virgin card numbers."

The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), the payments industry self- regulatory body in Australia, has released its latest fraud data for cheques, debit cards, credit and charge cards for the 12 month period ending 30 June 2008.

While Australia’s total rate of fraud remains low by global standards, the total rate of fraud (cheque and payment cards) has risen from 5.9 cents (2007) to 7.2 cents for every $1,000 of payments. Cheque fraud declined from 1.4 cents to 0.8 of a cent in every $1,000. Debit card fraud increased slightly from 7.1 cents to 7.4 cents in every $1,000. Credit and charge card fraud increased 30% from 38.6 cents to 50.2 cents in every $1,000 (5.02 basis points). READ MORE

CyberSource has released its 10th annual survey of eCommerce fraud showing that merchants expect to lose a record $4 billion to online fraud in 2008. According to CyberSource, "merchants say the fraud loss rate will hold constant at 1.4% of revenue (same as 2007 and 2006), but continuing growth in eCommerce sales mean dollar losses to fraud are still growing. Merchants are shifting some fraud fighting priorities, perhaps as an adjustment to a slowing economy." READ MORE

Peter Welch has authored a new report titled "Payment Card Fraud - France, Spain and UK" published by ECR Publishing Partnership. The report draws on statistics published by France’s Observatoire de la sécurité des cartes de paiement, ServiRed, the largest Spanish card payment network, and APACS, the UK payments association. You can request a copy of the report from Welch's web site.