STAR®

Consumers are increasingly choosing debit over credit. Many members of Generation Y have always used debit cards–39 percent of Gen Yers use their card at least 15 times each month, according to Aité Group’s 2009 report Engaging GenY: Cultivating a New Generation of Banking Customers–and other consumers are making the transition as a way to re-structure how they control their spending.

First Data recently announced an agreement with PayPal® that allows debit cardholders in the STAR® Network to link their debit cards to PayPal accounts right from their financial institution’s online banking site. This is an industry first, and we’re excited to be working with PayPal to help consumers feel more comfortable when they shop online.

First Data conducted an analysis of 2008 reported fraud instances to discover which solutions work best to detect and prevent fraudulent activity with debit card transactions. The analysis tracked three categories of debit accounts: those using no neural network-based fraud detection solutions, those using only a neural network solution and those protected by both neural network and rules-based decisioning tools. This document provides a summary of our findings.

First Data Competitive Intelligence conducted the Consumer Loyalty Study with 2,449 U.S. consumers in April 2009. The study focuses on rewards programs with Financial Institutions (FIs), the travel sector and the retail sector. This CI Market Brief focuses on consumer insights regarding rewards for the FI sector. Sample size completing the survey for Debit Card rewards programs was 286.

First Data Competitive Intelligence conducted the Consumer Loyalty Study with 2,449 U.S. consumers in April 2009. The study focuses on rewards programs with Financial Institutions (FIs), the travel sector and the retail sector. This CI Market Brief focuses on consumer insights regarding rewards for the FI sector. Sample sizes completing the survey for specific rewards programs are as follows: Bank Credit Card (n=290); Debit Card (n=286); Gas Credit Card (n=135); Department Store Credit Card (n=197).

The cost of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance is vastly underestimated—but maybe not as understated as the tangible and intangible costs of a data breach. Every merchant that accepts payment cards has a cardholder data environment (known as CDE, or the computer systems and applications that use or store sensitive card data) that comes under the purview of the PCI DSS. It’s possible to limit—and even shrink—the scope of the CDE in order to reduce or minimize the merchant’s PCI burden.