After cyber intrusion, Visa pulls off Global Payments from approved list

New York: Visa Inc has dropped payment processor Global Payments Inc from its list of approved service providers after a major cyber intrusion that could expose millions of Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover cardholders to fraudulent charges.

Visa, the world's largest credit and debit-card processing network, said it removed the company from its registry of compliant service providers due to "unauthorised access into a portion of (Global Payments') processing system".

It said it had asked Global Payments to revalidate its compliance processes with the payment card industry's data security standard.

[caption id="attachment_262743" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="A major cyber intrusion to a portion of Global Payments could expose millions of Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover cardholders to fraudulent charges. AFP"][/caption]

Global Payments is one of dozens of companies that operate along the payment-processing chain, between the time a person swipes a card to pay and the time the payment is delivered. They are prized targets for hackers due to the vast amount of sensitive financial information they handle.

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The payment processor disclosed the intrusion on Friday and will hold a conference call with investors on Monday morning.

Global Payments spokeswoman Amy Corn also confirmed the company had been taken off the list.

"We expect to be reinstated once we have been issued a new report of compliance," Corn said, noting that the company continues to process transactions for its merchants and customers.

Atlanta-based Global Payments, which has about 3,700 employees, was spun off from information-services firm National Data Corp in 2001.

For the fiscal year ended 31 May, Global Payment reported revenue of $1.9 billion, up 13 percent from the year-earlier period. According to a company presentation in January, it estimated fiscal 2012 revenue at about $2.15 billion.

Reuters