Visions Federal Credit Union, along with most banks and credit unions in the country, has had members affected by the data breach at credit card payment processor, Heartland Payment Systems¯ of Princeton, New Jersey. Heartland Payment Systems is the 6th largest payment center in the United States and processes credit card transactions for more than 250,000 businesses. Robert H.B. Baldwin, Jr., Heartland’s President and Chief Financial Officer, indicated the company noticed fraudulent activity reports late last year from MasterCard® and VISA® on cards that have been used at 250,000 merchants and restaurants who rely on Heartland to process their payments.

Visions Federal Credit Union is undertaking measures to protect its members, such as reissuing cards at the credit union’s expense rather than having the members bear losses. Frank E. Berrish, President/CEO of Visions FCU, stated that Visions experienced no breach of internal security and that protection of member data is always a high priority.

Visions is one of the few financial institutions in the country that carries insurance to protect its members and the credit union against fraudulent plastic card activity. Members may be expected to file a police report with local law enforcement agencies to substantiate the claim to the credit union’s insurance company.

Visions Federal Credit Union has one of the largest credit card portfolios of any financial institution in southern New York. Mr. Berrish indicated it may appear that the number of cards penetrated at Visions may be higher than other financial institutions only because of Visions has a large market share in the Southern Tier, consisting of 119,000 members and over 90,000 credit and debit cards that have been issued.

Heartland Payment Systems breach may be the largest ever, however, in the past couple of years, all financial institutions in this area have experienced breaches from other U.S. card payment processors, such as RBS World Pay¯, Hannaford Brothers Grocerys. Co., and T.J. Max CompaniesThe TJX Companies, Inc. to name a few.

Unfortunately, there is very little that the consumer or Visions FCU can do when criminals access processors’ systems that have data from credit cards on filecontain credit card data, other than to reissue cards for the protection of its members and to file insurance claims to recover the money.

Members affected by this breach have already been contacted by Visions but should feel free to call (607) 754-7900 if they have additional questions.