The recently established US-based Payments Processing Information Sharing Council (PPISC) has gained momentum with the formation of a steering committee tasked with setting the body’s agenda and initiatives.
The PPISC is part of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), a non-profit organisation formed in 1999 to promote collaboration on security issues between financial services industry players. Membership of the PPISC is open to credit and debit card payments processors owned and operated by depository financial institutions and third-party processors that conform to FS-ISAC operating rules.
PPISC member companies already comprise 12 of the top 15 US merchant acquirers and represents more than three-quarters of all electronic payment transaction volumes processed in the country.
For the PPISC’s steering committee, the FS-ISAC selected seven payments industry executives with Bob Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems, serving as chairman. Rick Van Luvender, director of InfoSec Incident Response at First Data, was selected as vice-chairman.
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Other committee members are:
• Terry Dooley, senior vice-president and CIO at ITS;
• Chris Kenyon, CIO and executive vice-president of systems and technology at Elavon Global Acquiring Solutions;
• John Kirkpatrick, senior vice president and CIO at Trans First Holdings;
• John Latimer, group executive and enterprise risk executive at TSYS; and
• Tom Tesmer, chief technology officer at Pipeline Data.
Commenting on the appointment of the seven committee members, Bill Nelson, the FS-ISAC’s president and CEO, said: “This group is one of the most talented and strongest leadership teams in the industry, and with its guidance, I’m confident our organisation will take the security of electronic payments and the fight against cyber crime to unprecedented levels.”
The PPISC has already begun mustering its forces, with a recent meeting attracting more than 40 professionals representing 29 payments processing companies and representatives from law enforcement agencies – including the US Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and US Postal Inspectors.
