Welcome back!!!!  This is the new home of the Next Gen Card discussions - My name is Matt Peterson and this blog is dedicated to answering your questions about the bankcard industry, the history and the of course the next generation of products that change the way we all pay for things in the future.

There has been so much excitement and comments from the original posting that I needed to find a better host and I want to the thank the folks at MindDeposit - great business model and even better they are good people to work with.

I want to discuss the recent media report about Heartland Payment - This is a very large acquirer (the acquirer works with the merchants, they provide the terminals and software that we as customers swipe our credit and debit cards in to complet our transactions at hte point of sale - the acquirer charges teh merchant a percentage of the sale price to process the bankcard transaction presenting it to the network and ultimately the bank for approval and settlement) with an estimated 100mm transactions a month for over 250,000 merchant locations.  Apparently sophisticated hackers breached the routing computers.  Only when Visa notified Heartland of possible fraud trends (I'll write a future article on Visa's neural network and what they do) did heartland check it's own system and realize they were compromised.  Suffice to say this will be the largest breach of card numbers in the histroy of credit card fraud to date and worse it is the potential fraud clean up that could even threatent the future of Heartland Payments.

I bring this arctle to note because the BankCard Industry needs to evolve - We need to get to a decoupled Credit/Debit model ASAP.  For new folks to this blog - Decoupled cards - is comparable to your ability to change phone carriers without being forced to change your phone number - in this case you can chose what funding source you make available to your card of choice and by transaction or amount.  This model finally gives the control of your money to the consumer and oh y the way you are also able to move bank accounts to the best value to you without going thru the painful process of reissuuing cards, or calling al of your autopay accounts with new card information.

And finally - if your decoupled card were to be one of the unfortunate accounts picked up by hackers your money/ID is protected at a transactional level - so you don't have to rely on after the fact notification that your account was compromised.  Look for letters coming in the mail from your bank about your card and the potential exposure.

I welcome questions, comments and your opinion on any subject related to the BankCard world.  part of being a guru is always being a student and I love this industry striving to stay at the forfront of the business.  Cheers!!