News

Heartland, Visa reach $60 million settlement

January 10, 2010

Bank Info Security reports that Heartland Payment Systems has agreed to pay Visa-branded credit and debit card issuers up to $60 million, the largest known settlement amount ever paid to Visa as a result of a security breach. (The TJX settlement only paid out $40.9 million in November 2007.)

The Heartland breach, first reported in January 2009, involved some 130 million credit and debit cards, and not all were Visa-branded. Heartland in December 2009 settled with American Express for $3.6 million.

The settlement also includes mutual releases between Heartland and its sponsoring bank acquirers. Heartland will fund up to $59.22 million of the amounts to be made available to Visa and its issuers under the settlement program. Additionally, Visa will credit the full amount of intrusion-related fines it previously imposed and collected from Heartland's sponsoring bank acquirers toward the $60 million maximum funding.

All U.S. card issuers that participate in the program will be eligible to receive a portion of the specified recovery.