Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) Fined $880,000 by Visa Inc. For Role In TJX (NYSE: TJX) Data Breach

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) has been fined $880,000 by Visa Inc. for FITB's role in the data breach at TJX Companies Inc. (NYSE: TJX).  (Click here for article by Boston Globe)  In recent years, banks, merchants, and credit card issuers have been at odds over who should be responsible for protecting credit card data.   

Thanks in part to the collaboration by credit card issuers like Visa and MasterCard, today the PCI (Payment Card Industry) Security Standards Council, an independent organization, is leading efforts and developing industry standards for data security that banks, merchants, and credit card issuers can all agree to adopt as baseline for the protection of consumers' credit card data.  Despite all of these efforts data breaches have occurred because of the reluctance by organizations to implement appropriate data security measures.

It is my hope that the motivation for banks and merchants to act to protect consumers' personal and financial information is not only driven by self-regulatory industry actions.