Heartland settles with American Express

Heartland Payment Systems, one of the nation's largest payments processors, has not had a good year. Its systems have been hacked, data from users has been stolen, and embarrassment and financial consequences have followed.

Last week in an effort to begin cleaning the slate, Heartland agreed to pay American Express $3.6 million to settle charges relating to the 2008 hacking of its payment system network.

This is the first settlement Heartland has reached with a credit card brand since disclosing the incident in January. The company still has not reached an agreement with Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and Discover Financial Services.

Heartland in May set aside $12.6 million to settle charges related to the breach. Credit card-issuers such as American Express have had to pay the costs of re-issuing credit cards following the breach, and many banks have sued Heartland to recover these costs.

The Department of Justice charged Albert Gonzalez and several others with the hack. It is believed the thieves stole more than 130 million credit card numbers from Heartland.

For more on Heartland's settlement:
- see this PCWorld.com article

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