Finovate Startup09 Company Descriptions

Finovate Startup Conference Company Descriptions (NetBanker)
By Jim Bruene

To give you an idea of the types of innovations being funded in financial services these days, here's a capsule description of the first 48 companies demoing at FinovateStartup April 28 in San Francisco

Attention attendees: You have just one day left to register (here) at the discounted price of $795.

Finovate Startup 2009 Participants

Acculynk
Acculynk is a payments solutions provider with a suite of software-only services that secure online transactions by utilizing a graphical, scrambling PIN-pad for the secure entry of sensitive cardholder information.

AlphaClone
AlphaClone is a web-based investment research service that lets users explore the investing ideas of top hedge fund and institutional money managers.

Aradiom
Aradiom is a mobile solutions provider and designer of Java mobile applications and platform development technology including turn-key applications, embedded soft-token security solutions and BlackBerry® enterprise applications.

BillShrink
BillShrink is a personalized savings advisor that helps consumers make smart, money-saving decisions by providing continuously updated, personalized, usage-based recommendations on everyday services like credit cards and cell phone plans

BudgetTracker
BudgetTracker is a personal finance manager that allows users to manage their finances and keep track of their budget, bills, and transactions online without having to install software.

CalendarBudget
CalendarBudget is a free online personal budgeting tool that helps users organize and track their finances, plan future spending and save money.

Centrro
Centrro is a financial search engine that allows consumers to anonymously shop for personal financial products that best fit their specific credit profile.

CircleUp
CircleUp provides group communications services, which enable actionable and efficient interactions across diverse social, email, mobile, messaging and private web networks.

Cooler Inc.
Cooler Inc. enables users to know, decrease, and offset the global warming impact of their everyday purchases and activities by using the country's only peer-reviewed carbon calculator to calculate impact and then providing reductions targets and strategies, and offering recommendations on high quality carbon offsets.

CreditArray
CreditArray is a vault of proprietary information to allow consumers to better apply for and manage their credit portfolios.

Credit Karma
Credit Karma provides consumers free access to their credit score and offers credit simulators, advice, and credit score comparison tools in order to allow them to more actively manage their credit and financial health.

GoalSpring
GoalSpring's product, DebtGoal, makes paying down debt as easy and efficient as possible by taking into account all of a customer's debt and helping them organize, optimize and pay it down.

Expensify
Expensify simplifies keeping track of business expenses by combining an electronic payment card and a web-based expense manager to automate expense report preparation, approval, and reimbursement.

Green Sherpa
Green Sherpa offers personal cash flow management software that lets users conveniently download, manage and update all their financial accounts via a single online resource.

Home-Account
Home-Account is in stealth mode at this time.


HomeATM

HomeATM provides a secure PIN debit and PIN credit card transaction method via the Internet that utilizes the HomeATM swipe pad technology to allow users to conduct secure PIN-based transactions from home, ensuring virtually zero fraud and lower merchant processing fee costs.



iBearSoft
iBearSoft is the creator of iBearMoney, a personal finance application for the iPhone that allows users to input and categorize their transactions, run financial reports, analyze payments, and keep track of expenses.

iThryv
iThryv is a financial literacy platform that combines a content delivery system and an incentive system in order to create an immersive learning environment which provides a powerful tool when used in partnership with online banking and core providers.

Jwaala
Jwaala provides software for banks and credit unions that improves their online banking services. Their MoneyTracker application offers a personal financial management solution that can be added to any bank or credit union's existing online banking solution.

kaChing
kaChing is a social investment community that applies an open source and social-networking strategy to offer every investor the opportunity to find outstanding investors, emulate their portfolios, and access the returns, insights, transparency and talent previously only available to wealthy individuals.

Kapitall
Kapitall is a rich web application that aims to make investing easy for everyone. Inspired by game design, Kapitall combines an graphical user interface with tools that make it easier than ever to research companies, build portfolios, share ideas and get smarter about the market.

Lending Club
Lending Club is an online social lending network where people can borrow and invest money at attractive rates.

LendingKarma
LendingKarma is a person-to-person lending site that makes it easy for parties that know each other to create loans and provides borrowers and lenders with tools to help service the loan and see it through to repayment.

Looniesdesk.com
Looniesdesk.com enables people to manage their finances online using an open source financial platform that allows developers to build sophisticated applications which will help users enhance their experience and increase the efficiency of the service.

Mint
Mint is an online personal finance service that securely downloads users' financial transactions, allows them to categorize their transactions, provides a unified view of all account activity and relevant account alerts, and offers personalized suggestions for significant savings opportunities.

Moneta
Moneta provides a secure, quick and easy form of online payment that directly debits users' checking or money market account allowing users to only enter a secure username and password when making online purchases.

NCore
NCore provides enterprise class delivery channel solutions to financial institutions within the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions fusing applications, innovative security and middleware technology into a single integrated platform.

OurCashFlow
OurCashFlow offers personal finance management tools for financial institutions that can turn their website into a place where customers can create a budget, save money and achieve their savings goals.

Pennyminder
Pennyminder helps individuals and small groups manage their shared and personal finances by tracking deposits and withdrawals allowing them to see what's happening with their money

People Capital
People Capital is a peer-to-peer private student loan service that utilizes a unique scoring system to predict a student's potential and provide a true, unbiased measure of the economic value of an education that empowers students to make better educational decisions and offers multiple advantages for both borrowers and lenders.

Pertuity Direct
Pertuity Direct offers social lending for personal loans by bringing together the advantages of capital markets, social networks and traditional banking.

Portfolio Monkey
Portfolio Monkey provides free online portfolio management tools to help average investors optimize their portfolios and find customized investment ideas so they can create more efficient portfolios with higher expected return and less risk.

Prosper
Prosper is a person-to-person lending marketplace where people list and bid on loans using Prosper's online auction platform.

The Receivables Exchange
The Receivables Exchange is a real-time online market for trading accounts receivable that gives businesses access to working capital at a competitive cost by connecting a global network of accredited investors to the nation's small and mid-sized businesses.

Rudder
Rudder is a free personal finance software designed to minimize the effort required in managing money by helping users to manage their budget, track their bills and analyze their expected income and projected expenses.

Silver Tail Systems
Silver Tail Systems provides fraud prevention to defend users' websites against business logic abuse through the use of behavior detection, efficient investigation and real-time mitigation to track suspicious behavior and divert the bad actors, leaving legitimate users unaffected.

SimpliFi
SimpliFi provides independent financial advice online. Users can complete a profile and receive a personal financial plan with specific actionable steps.

SmartHippo
SmartHippo uses the power of the community to find users the best rates on financial products and services.

SmartyPig
SmartyPig is a social saving service that helps users save for a specific goal by allowing them to invite others to contribute to their account, providing incentive boosts from top retailers, and offering a competitive interest rate.

Strands
moneyStrands is a money management service that helps users get information on anything from practical savings tips to getting help tracking expenses down

Syphr
Syphr is a technology and marketing credit union service organization that created RateMatch, a service that matches participating credit unions with the thousands of credit report purchasers per month.

ThreatMetrix
ThreatMetrix helps companies control online fraud and abuse in real time by profiling the device used in an online transaction so companies can determine whether the users are fraudsters or customers.

Transparent Financial Services
Transparent Financial Services is online comparison-shopping service for small businesses that uses technology to help users compare and purchase financial services like payroll processing, credit card processing and business loans.

Victrio
Victrio offers a credit risk management system that uses voiceprint recognition technology to fight credit card fraud and identity theft.

Wesabe
Wesabe is an online personal finance management tool that provides members with information about where they spend and links them with a community dedicated to helping each other make smart financial decisions.

WeSeed
WeSeed seeks to demystify the stock market by helping real people share what they know and make smart investing decisions based on the collective wisdom of the community.

ZimpleMoney
ZimpleMoney is a web-based financial services platform enabling people and organizations to manage and administer financial agreements including loans, leases, rentals, tithing, trusts and settlements.

Visa Survey Reveals Many SME's Believe They Are too Small to Attract Fraudsters

Fraud Prevention Month activities highlight importance of data security for small businesses in Canada

TORONTO, Feb. 27 /CNW/ - A survey of Canadian small businesses released today by Visa reveals that 41 per cent of respondents believe that 'data thieves and hackers' are not interested in targeting their businesses because of their size.  

As part of its annual Fraud Prevention Month activities, Visa is hosting free fraud prevention seminars in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Calgary that will emphasize the importance of data security for small businesses.

"Regardless of the size of the enterprise, it's important for business owners to appreciate the importance of data security and what steps they should take to protect their customers and business," says Gord Jamieson, Head of Payment System Risk, Visa Canada. "The information sessions will provide a great deal of information and an opportunity for small business owners and managers to ask questions."

The Ipsos Reid survey, which was commissioned by Visa Canada, surveyed 885 small business owners about their data storage and security practices.

39% of respondents describe securing customer information as a vital part of their business and 94% believe that securing data is important to their customers. Of the 60 per cent of respondents that do keep electronic files with customer information, 86 per cent noted that they either encrypt the data (8%), ensure that it is password protected (39%) or ensure that the information is both encrypted and password protected (39%).

While the majority of respondents claim to appreciate the importance of data security to their business and customers, more than half (52%) have never sought information about how to properly secure electronic information and 24 per cent do not know where to get information about how to better secure information for their business.

"Preventing fraud is a shared responsibility," says Jamieson. "By offering information to small businesses during Fraud Prevention Month, we can help them better protect themselves against data thieves."

The Visa Canada workshops will help educate small businesses about how to better protect themselves from fraudsters. Sessions will include information on how to properly process a credit card transaction, tips on how to protect credit card information and to ensure that their payment application is secure, chip and PIN technology, and an overview of the Visa Account

Information program. More information and free registration is available online at www.visa.ca/fpm. In addition, through its participation in the Fraud Prevention Forum, Visa works closely with government and law enforcement to provide educational materials to all Canadians to help them "recognize, report and stop" fraud. Educational materials for consumers and merchants on fraud prevention can be found on www.visa.ca/securewithvisa.

About the Survey

The online survey was conducted between February 2 and 9, 2009, by Ipsos Reid. A total of 885 small and medium sized business owners who employ 1-250 employees and accept credit or debit cards were surveyed. An unweighted probability sample of this size, with 100 per cent response rate, would have an estimated margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Margin of error for subgroups will be larger.

About Visa

Visa Inc. operates the world's largest retail electronic payments network providing processing services and payment product platforms. This includes consumer credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, which are offered
under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink and PLUS brands. Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world, and Visa/PLUS is one of the world's largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in more
than 170 countries. For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com.

For further information: Sarah Van Lange, Fleishman Hillard, (416) 645-8173, sarah.vanlange@fleishman.ca; Carla Morin, Visa Canada, (416) 860-8850, camorin@visa.com


Source: VISA INC.

Banks File Class Action Against Heartland

Bank Info Security, which has been covering the Heartland Breach better than most any other site I have found is now reporting that a class action lawsuit has been filed against the company on behalf of the banking institutions. 

Saw this coming from a mile away...(see: Banks Not HPY with Heartland)  This is just the beginning folks.  If I owned shares in Heartland, I wouldn't be HPY.

One lawsuit,the Lone Star National Bank is asking for $50 million in damages.  Damages will most likely be trebled.  This has got to be giving Heartland a bad ticker...speaking of which I haven't had an opportunity to check their stock price yet today...hold on..let me grab it for you...


In the meantime, you can click on the graphic to enlarge if you can't read it...

Flash Player 9 or higher is required to view the chart
Click here to download Flash Player now

View the full HPY chart at Wikinvest

Here ya go..it's a little off from it's 52 week high...yes?  Heartland says it will meritoriously defend itself against any lawsuit, which I take to mean that it will file a counter-suit against the brands (V/MC) claiming the breach was their fault because they don't provide end-to-end encryption. 

IMHO, if Visa and MasterCard would simply take the reduced Interchange Fees hit and get rid of (completely eliminate) signature debit...and completely replace it with the more secure PIN Debit debit platform, this dog wouldn't be barking. 

Here's the report from Bank Info Security:

Heartland Data Breach: Class Action Suit Filed on Behalf of Banking Institutions

Complaint Seeks to Recover Costs, Damages from Fraud

February 27, 2009 - Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

One month after the Heartland Payment Systems (HPY)data breach was revealed, a Philadelphia law firm filed a class actionlawsuit against the processor on behalf of two banks and three creditunions. The complaint was filed by Chimicles & Tikellis in U.S. District Court in Trenton, NJ on February 20.  (Click the graphic below to enlarge and read the treble damages request)

The five institutions named in the complaint are AmalgamatedBank, New York, NY; Matadors Community Credit Union, Chatsworth, CA;GECU, El Paso, TX; MidFlorida Federal Credit Union, Lakeland, FL ;andFarmers State Bank, Marcus, IA. All the institutions say they have hadto re-issue "substantial" numbers of credit and debit cards because ofthe Heartland breach.

Joseph Sauder, the (soon to rich) attorney leading the case, says while onlyfive institutions were named in the complaint, "We talked with numerousbanks. These five were the ones we selected to present in thecomplaint."

Although no one has estimated officially how many institutions, cards and consumers might be affected by the breach, more than 500 institutions have stepped forward to tell Information Security Media Group that they have been impacted.

Chimicles & Tikellis also has a consumer class action lawsuit filed against Heartland, filed in the same U.S. District Court in Trenton on January 27.


Seeking to Recover Costs

In the new class action suit, Sauder says the institutions "seekto recover money for the cost of reissuing cards and also for thefraudulent activity that banks and credit unions are ultimatelyresponsible for as a result of this breach, among other things."

Heartland announced on January 20 that its computer systems hadbeen breached by outside hackers sometime in 2008. The processorhandled on average 100 million transactions per month for about 175,000merchants and retail establishments. Heartland only became aware of thebreach after it was notified by Visa and MasterCard of "patterns offraudulent credit card activity," the lawsuit states.

The breach compromised information including debit and creditcard numbers, expiration dates and internal bank codes. Many of theinstitutions that had cards compromised in the breach were forced tore-issue new credit and debit cards to their customers. "Given thelarge size of the data breach, the expenses associated with doing soare substantial," the complaint says, "and include costs for purchasingnew plastic debit and credit cards, postage and other mailing expenses,time spent by employees address this issue and harm to reputation andgoodwill."|


Many institutions have also reported incidents of fraud, thecomplaint states. It says Heartland's actions "constitute violations ofthe consumer protection statute of New Jersey," and amounts to a breachof implied contract, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, andcommon law negligence.

Sauder says he cannot estimate how soon the case may begin orhow long it may last. "It's hard to tell at this time, since the casewas just filed, as to what Heartland's position is going to be," hesays. He adds that more institutions are expected to join the classaction suit.

Other Suits

There are at least three consumer class action lawsuitsfiled against Heartland and three other lawsuits filed in other courtsby institutions seeking to recoup their losses and expenses related tothe breach:

• The Lone Star National Bank, Pharr, TX has filed a lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages against Heartland. The Lone Star case was filed in Texas Southern District Court on February 16.
  
  
• TriCentury Bank, Simpson, KS filed a lawsuit in New Jersey District Court on February 13 seeking a judgment against the payments processor for breach of contract.
  
  
• Lone Summit Bank, Lake Lotawana, MO filed a lawsuit in the Fraud or Truth-In-Lending office of the New Jersey District Court on February 6.

The lawsuits against Heartland aren't the only issues the paymentsprocessor is confronting. During a conference call reportingHeartland's 2008 fourth quarter earnings on February 24, HeartlandPresident and CFO Bob Baldwin said, "Today, we have had severallawsuits filed against us and we expect that additional lawsuits willbe filed. We are also the subject to several governmentalinvestigations and enquiry, including an informal enquiry by the SECand a related investigation by the Department of Justice, an inquiry bythe OCC, and an inquiry by the FTC, and we may, in the future, besubject to other governmental enquiries and investigation."

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hackers blamed in massive cyber fraud scam (canada.com)
• Payment processor Heartland reports breach (news.cnet.com)
• Hackers attack credit card processor in massive security breach (cbc.ca)
• Fraud linked to US payment processor breach (theregister.co.uk)
• Another Month, Another Massive Credit Card Data Breach [Data Theft] (consumerist.com)
• Another day, another 100 million credit cards compromised (venturebeat.com)
• Heartland sued over data breach (news.cnet.com)

Experts Publish 20 Guidelines to Halt Data Breaches

NOTICE to readers of this draft document: Criticisms and suggestionsare strongly encouraged. If you are actively engaged in cyberforensics, red teams, blue teams, technical incident response,vulnerability research, or cyber attack research or operations, pleasehelp make sure this document is as good as it can be. Sendcriticism/comments/sugges tions to John Gilligan as well as to cag@sans.org byMarch 25, 2009Twenty Most Important Controls and Metrics for Effective Cyber Defense and Continuous FISMA Compliance

  

    Publish at Scribd or explore others:            Academic Work                  cyberdefense              fisma          

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Mobile Banking to Top $5.5 Billion in 2013

Forecast: Mobile banking revenues to top $5.5B in 2013

By Jason Ankeny

Consumers will conduct almost 300 billion mobile payment and banking transactions worth more than $860 billion in 2013, a twelve-fold increase in gross global transaction values in five years, according to a new forecast published by market research firm Informa Telecoms & Media. Informa contends that if key players collaborate effectively, the mobile payments and banking market offers a shared annual revenue opportunity of more than $10 billion in 2013, galvanized by m-banking services, which are expected to contribute $5.5 billion of that amount. Informa predicts that in four years' time, more than 445 million mobile subscribers worldwide will regularly use their mobile phone to purchase physical goods and services remotely--the report estimates that while the value of mobile payments and transactions in 2008 totaled around $71 billion, a third of which was spent on mobile digital content like ringtones, games and full-track downloads, physical goods and services will represent about 95 percent of mobile transactions by 2013.

Informa forecasts there will be 977 million worldwide users of mobile banking services by 2013, up from about 67 million at the end of 2008. In addition, almost 424 million consumers will transmit more than $157 billion of personal funds via mobile domestically by 2013, with another 73 million sending $48 billion internationally. However, Informa anticipates near-field communications payment models will be held back by the lack of availability of NFC-enabled handsets and related uncertainties concerning the overall business case for mobile NFC. Even so, Informa believes approximately 11 percent of all mobile handsets shipped in 2013 will be NFC enabled, with more than 178 million mobile subscribers regularly using mobile NFC phones to acquire physical goods and services, such as tickets, at the point of sale.

Informa credits the growth of mobile payments to drivers and enablers including more sophisticated handsets and network technologies, a more enlightened regulatory perspective on mobile banking, consumer familiarity and increased investment across the ecosystem. The report concedes that uncertainties remain, in particular the global financial meltdown as well as a crisis in consumer confidence triggered by widespread turmoil throughout the banking industry.

For more on the Informa forecast: read this release

Related articles:
Bill Gates pledges $12.5 million for mobile banking
MMA publishes Mobile Banking Overview

Whitepaper - Mobile Banking in the United States

Blackberry Whitepaper: Mobile Banking in the United States – The Evolution of Anywhere Banking

Technological, economic and market factors have enabled a new breed of customers. Find out how the banking industry can leverage this new channel.

* Download Now (PDF)

or...to only see their conclusion, click the image below and it will enlarge enough to read

Moneris Awards Verifone $10M EMV Terminal Contract

CANADA'S MONERIS AWARDS VERIFONE $10M EMV TERMINAL CONTRACT

Bank-backed Canadian card payments processor Moneris is gearing up for the country's migration to EMV by awarding eftpos vendor Verifone a $10 million contract for the supply of terminals.

More on this story: http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=19695

Pago Retail Report 2008 Press Release

(In Europe) Credit card increases lead over other payment methods in online retailing

Latest Pago Retail Report by Deutsche Card Services shows significant differences in payment behaviour between online retailing and e-commerce as a whole

COLOGNE, 27 February 2009 - As in overall e-commerce, credit cards are clearly the preferred payment method in European retailing. Their share rose almost 6 pp year-on-year, to now 81.57%. In other words: Consumers use credit cards to pay for more than eight out of ten purchases in European online retailing. This is one of the results explained in the Pago Retail Report 2008, which was recently published by Deutsche Card Services, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank. 

(Editor's Note: These numbers are skewed because PIN Debit is not ubiquitous on the web.  For "across the board" numbers, visit "Debit is King, Cash Overthrone")

Offline payment methods and direct debiting lose importance in favour of credit cards

Despite the predominance of credit cards offline payment methods such as invoice purchases, COD and prepayment as well as direct debiting still play a more important role in online retailing than in overall e-commerce (payment behaviour in overall e-commerce is described in detail in the Pago Report 2008).

Just like the sector-specific Pago Retail Report 2008, the Pago Report 2008 is based on real-life transactions, not on surveys. That is what makes the Pago Reports different from other e-commerce studies. The report highlights that 5.04% of all retail transactions were paid for by offline methods and 11.97% by direct debiting.

The shares of these payment methods in overall e-commerce are only 0.77% and 8.34%, respectively. However, offline payment and direct debiting lose ground to credit cards in online retailing; in fact, the latter increased their lead, largely due to the success of Visa, whose share rose by more than 4%, whereas competing credit card brand MasterCard lost more than 2%.

Consumers from the UK and from outside Europe pay almost exclusively by credit card

The predominance of credit cards as most important payment method in retailing is even more visible among consumers from the UK and outside Europe than among German customers. Traditional payment methods such as invoice purchasing or direct debiting are almost non-existent for this consumer group. UK consumers use their credit cards even more often in retailing than in overall e-commerce. The share in overall e-commerce is already very high, at 91.50%, and it rises to 94.90% in retailing. Maestro, the leading international debit payment method, which is gaining ground in e-commerce in comparison to credit cards, is the only other payment method which seems acceptable to British consumers, with a share of 5.10%. Shops which also target customers outside Europe do well to offer credit card payment, which has a share of almost 100% among these consumers.Upward potential for new payment methods Maestro and giropay in European retailingIn general, retail consumers are still reluctant to adopt newer payment methods such as Maestro and giropay (which is based on the well-established PIN/TAN electronic banking method) - at least more reluctant than e-commerce customers as a whole. giropay meets with even less approval than Maestro. Maestro has a share of 0.77%, but giropay undershoots even this low mark with a share of only 0.65%. This is probably due to the fact that, using this new payment method, it is still difficult to process retail good returns and the crediting procedure for returned purchases is complicated.

Visa increases its lead over MasterCard as top credit card brand

Visa, which is the leading credit card brand in overall e-commerce, was able to confirm and even improve its leadership position in retailing, too. While the gap between Visa and MasterCard was just above 19pp in the preceding year, it is now more than 25pp. Visa has increased its lead again at the expense of the other credit card brands, whose share dropped from 7.35% to 5.48%. In the meantime Visa has overtaken its rival MasterCard in retailing with German consumers, too: While MasterCard was ahead of Visa in the preceding year with a share of 41.69% (vs 33.95%), Visa is now in front of MasterCard (44.40% vs 35.40%). In other consumer countries such as the UK, where the lead is an impressive 36.20 pp, Visa is even more predominant than in Germany.

Source: Press Release

Related articles

• Fraud linked to US payment processor breach (theregister.co.uk)
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Visa in one Helluva SMS

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Feb. 26 /PRNewswire/ --

Charge Notification Services Corporation (C.N.S.C.) has filed a lawsuit against VISA, Inc. for patent infringement. C.N.S.C. is a relatively young company in Miami, Florida, that offers information processing services to credit card issuing banks. The C.N.S.C. patent covers charge card transaction authorization and/or notification in real-time via SMS to the cardholder's cellular phone. VISA and some of their bank partners have recently been offering this service.

"We are very sorry that it had to come to filing this suit," says Ivan Ochoa, the C.E.O. of C.N.S.C. "For months we've tried exhaustively to work with VISA with no results. We're a young company but we have experience with this product and the credit card business as a whole. We have the knowledge and infrastructure to handle even the most extreme transaction volume. We've expended considerable resources on patent registration and product development."

Editor's note:  Apparently Visa didn't get the SMSage

Daniel Davila, COO of C.N.S.C., adds: "In these economically troubled times people want to use their cards (debit, pre-paid, credit card and charge) and receive real-time information about charges to their account. If cardholders have to wait until they receive their statement to discover possible merchant errors or duplications, it's already too late to avoid the complex and time-consuming process of 'charge-back' that costs cardholders and businesses time, resources and aggravation. Of course what cardholders want most of all is to be confident that their card account will not be used fraudulently. All indicators show that card fraud activity is expected to increase even further. We have the line of products that will significantly decrease card fraud and give confidence to all cardholders that in the event their card or account information is ever stolen and used fraudulently our SMS service will send them notification within a matter of seconds from the moment it occurs. We are in the business of stopping the fraudsters and providing tremendous savings and other benefits to our card issuing clients. As VISA continues to infringe on our patent, we really must take this legal action against them to protect our business. In the meantime, of course, we continue to actively offer our services to all card issuing financial institutions."

Ochoa and Davila have a combined five decades of experience in the financial services industry. Mr. Davila's background includes 16 years at American Express where he was a Senior Director within the Global Network Services (GNS/Franchise) division and more recently, two years as Vice President and Chief Risk Officer of the credit card division at Russian Standard Bank (RSB) in Moscow. While at RSB, Mr. Davila launched a similar SMS credit card fraud protection service with great success, resulting in an overall significant reduction of fraudulent transactions. Mr. Ochoa's 25 years in the financial services industry include executive positions within American Express and MasterCard International, where he was Chief of Staff for Latin American countries. His areas of expertise include managing operations for multi-markets, re-engineering, quality control and technology. Mr. Ochoa has lead major innovative developments in products and systems.

SOURCE Charge Notification Services Corporation