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.

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.