Links in “Credit/Debit Cards”

Group of Congressional leaders invite the Department of Education to exercise its authority to regulate relationships between colleges and financial providers of debit and prepaid cards used for distributing federal student financial aid to students. The letter is in response to concerns raised in a GAO study released last month that found high fees. [4/29]

Bank of America to refund customers $727 million and pay $45 million in fines for card add-on products, such as deceiving customers into buying credit monitoring and identity theft protection. CFPB indicates it will be "vigilant in [its] pursuit of companies who wrong consumers in this market." [4/10]

OCC assessed its own $25 million penalty against Bank of America and its credit card subsidiary FIA Card Services along with $459.5 million in restitution for the 1.9 million consumer accounts for unfair and deceptive acts or practices violations associated with the bank's practices for add-on products related to identity theft protection. [4/10]

CFPB (see also OCC penalty) orders Bank of America, N.A. and FIA Card Services, N.A. to provide an estimated $727 million in relief to approximately 1.4 million consumers harmed by practices related to credit card add-on products. An additional $20 million CMP will be paid to CFPB by BofA as the 5th major FI fined for deceptive marketing of their add-on products related to credit monitoring and credit reporting services that were promoted, but not received. [4/10]

FFIEC's statements last week take a look at cyber-attacks on ATMs and card authorization and DDoS attacks on websites. In one, hackers targeted ATMs by installing malware that allowed for unlimited withdrawals, beyond the available balance, resulting in $40 million in fraud using only 12 stolen debit accounts. [4/9]

Check fraud remains the most common type of fraud, but debit and credit card fraud hit 43% of organizations in this survey, up from 29% last year. [4/7]

Amendments to the Truth in Lending Act may make it appear that small servicers are exempt from the requirements to post their credit card agreements online. AffirmX’s senior analyst, Coppelia Padgett, explains why a closer look is a good idea.

Some small credit card providers are finding out the hard way that an exemption they thought applied to them when it comes to posting their credit card agreement online doesn't. AffirmX's Coppelia Padgett explains. [3/18]

NAFCU has issued a public statement taking the National Retailers Federation to task for what it sees as erroneous claims about data breaches and the measures needed to address them. Despite NRF’s claim that card issuers could eliminate the risk through chip-and PIN technology, NAFCU says that national standards on data security for retailers is a critical component in addressing the issue. [3/6]

Citadel EFT announced its intentions to provide a comprehensive processing solution for the legal marijuana industry, pledging to make it legal and fully compliant with Federal and State laws. [3/5]