Credit Card Data Breach in Spain

2009-11-25

Visa and MasterCard are warning banks of fraudulent credit card transactions after the discovery of a possible security breach at a data processor in Spain.

A spokesman for the association of cooperative banks BVR stated that the fraud involved Visa and MasterCard credit card holders who recently traveled to Spain. This has led to the replacement of thousands of credit cards all over Europe, including over 100,000 in Germany alone.

Andreas Martin of the German Central Credit Card Commission (ZKA), told Deutsche Welle "It's a massive replacement program. A number of credit card distributors have been affected including some from other countries. We are not sure of how many cardholders were in Spain at the time in question."

The Stuttgarter Zeitung is reporting that banks in Austria, Sweden and Finland have also issued new cards.

The Financial Times Deutschland newspaper reports that MasterCard and Visa warned the banks about possible problems after irregularities were discovered at a Spanish payment processor. A criminal investigation has been launched. At this time no further details regarding how the fraudsters got hold of the customers' account information have been released.