RIGHT SPEAK: Data Privacy Under Threat—New Credit Bill Puts Your Confidential Data At Risk; Big Box Bill Will Seriously Harm Small Business & Credit Unions; Washington's Planned Theft Of Credit Card Benefits

Data Privacy Under Threat—New Credit Bill Puts Your Confidential Data At Risk:

With data thieves and hackers working around the clock, banks and financial institutions spend billions of dollars on data security and are held to strict data security compliance requirements. Because of these investments and safeguards, Americans overwhelmingly trust our nation’s financial institutions to protect and safeguard their data.

But a new credit bill, backed by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Kansas Senator Roger Marshall, threatens these trusted protections.

If passed, their legislation is poised to detrimentally impact credit card services, rewards, and consumer data security–all to line the pockets of the largest corporations like Target and Walmart.

The Durbin-Marshall bill seeks to disrupt the entire landscape of the current American credit card system. First, mandates will cause credit cards to be directed through entirely new, untested, and unknown processing networks. In turn, this allows mega-stores to cut corners and turn to a cheaper, less secure router, ultimately increasing the risk of unauthorized access to your financial data.

As mega-stores have proven time and time again through infamous data breaches, they do not prioritize data security. In contrast, traditional banks have demonstrated a commitment to investing in the protection of their customers’ information.

A recent research report offers greater insights into the ways that moving routing decisions from banks to corporate retailers will lead to a heightened risk of data breaches. Retailers regularly fall victim to data breaches. Wawa, Home Depot and Target experienced malware attacks that compromised the credit and debit card data of over 127 million people.

Most data breach cases occur because corporations choose to cut corners with security matters at the expense of protecting their customers. Until after their data breach, Home Depot did not even have a chief information security officer. In Wawa’s case, Attorneys General stated that the company did not even have “reasonable security measures in place to protect customer data.” --->READ MORE HERE

Pixaboy by Jimarojfm

Big Box Bill Will Seriously Harm Small Busines & Credit Unions:

t wasn’t long ago when people lamented the destruction of small businesses by big box stores. That sentiment seems to have gone into history with a new law, The Big Box Bill.

This past week, big-box retailers led by Walmart and Target were successful in getting Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Peter Welch (D-VT) to introduce legislation that would create new credit card routing mandates. The bill is also called the Big Box Bill and the Big Box Bailout.

These mandates would allow Walmart to process credit card transactions based solely on what is cheapest for them without regard to the value consumers derive from rewards and many other benefits.

This “Big-Box Bait-and-Switch” would add billions of dollars to the bottom lines of mega-retailers every year while eliminating almost all the funding that goes towards popular credit card rewards programs, weakening cybersecurity protections, and reducing access to credit, particularly for Americans who need it most.

THE 2010 DEBACLE FOR THE LITTLE GUY

The same promises were made during the Durbin Amendment debate in 2010, yet small, “exempt” banks saw a quarter of their debit card revenue disappear, and fraud costs increased after it became law.

And just like debit card routing mandates passed in 2010, the Big-Box Bill will solely benefit Walmart and Target at the expense of everyone else. While retailers reap the benefits of this legislation, consumers, community banks, credit unions, and small businesses are left to pay the price. Credit card routing mandates would rob them of the security, efficiency, and convenience they receive from choosing which credit card networks are best for them.